The Development of the Field Breeding of the Landed Estates of the Russian Empire in the Post-Reform Period

After the abolition of serfdom and the deprivation of a number of privileges to the nobility, the main of which was free labor, landowners were forced to adapt to the realities of capitalist reality.No matter how painful the transitional forms of integration into the new management system (mining, use, introduction of a fallow system), the final result of the restructuring of private estates that had begun was to attract serfdom to developed economies.At the same time, all components of the landlord economy had to change on the way to progress -from the introduction of free hiring of workers and technical modernization of the economy to changing the land use system and rationalization of field cultivation.A systematic study of the administrative aspects of the estate's development in the second half of the 19th century is missing in historiography.Some aspects of this process can be traced back to pre-revolutionary writings.At the same time, a significant amount of source data, general statistical notes on the personnel of a number of estates were contained in zemstvo collections, which have not lost their significance so far.The success of the landlords' development of new forms of economic activity was significantly influenced by the global market situation.The reform of 1861 fell on a general decline in prices on the grain market.The influx of overseas grain into European ports (the main factor in the decline in trade) has ruined the Russian producer.In 1882-1890 export prices for Russian rye decreased by 35 %, wheat depreciated by 17 %.A feature of the post-reform modernization of the agrarian system of Russia was the gradual transition of ownership economies from old serf fiefdoms to capitalist competitive farms.To increase the efficiency of different types of estates, the owners had to modernize land use, carry out sectoral specialization of field farming, and attract new capital into production.