Allotment Land Research Articles

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ПОЗЕМЕЛЬНОГО УСТРОЙСТВА КРЕСТЬЯН СТАРОДУБЬЯ (ЮГО-ЗАПАДНОЙ БРЯНЩИНЫ) ПО РЕФОРМЕ 1861 Г.

Based on archival documents, the article examines the features of the land structure of Starodubye peasants during the post-reform period. This historical region belonged in the second half of the XIX century to the north-eastern counties of the former Chernihiv province of the Russian Empire. They consisted of Starodubsky, Novozybkovsky, Mglinsky and Surazhsky counties. Now Starodubye belongs to the south-western part of the Bryansk region of Russia. The purpose of the article is to determine whether the peasants of Starodubye won or lost as a result of the Reform of 1861. We analyzed a large number of charters that are contained in the cases of the purchase of land plots by temporarily liable peasants of Starodubya in the Russian State Historical Archive. As a result, it was found that allotment lands could not provide the peasants with a living wage and the payment of ransom payments. Farmers often got inconvenient plots for cultivation. The peasants had to move their estates and various buildings to allotment land, which significantly complicated their life during the post-reform period. Landlords usually did not prevent peasants from using public areas, but limited their access to wood for heating houses. The dominant form of land use was communal, but sometimes landlords allowed the division of public land into farm plots.

Health and environmental impact assessment of landfill mining activities: A case study in Norfolk, UK

The release of fine particles during mechanical landfill mining (LFM) operations is a potential environmental pollution and human health risk. Previous studies demonstrate that a significant proportion (40–80% wt) of the content of fine soil-like materials within the size range <10 mm to <4 mm recovered from such operations originate from municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. This study evaluates the potential health risks caused by emissions from LFM activities. MSW samples recovered from the drilling of four different wells of a closed UK landfill were analysed for physical, chemical, and biological properties to determine the extent of potential contaminant emissions during LFM activities. The results show that fine particles (approximately ≤1.5 mm) accounted for more than 50% of the total mass of excavated waste and contained predominantly soil-like materials. The concentrations of Zn, Cu, Pb, Cd, As, and Cr exceed the permissible limits set by the current UK Soil Guideline Values. The highest geoaccumulation index and contamination factor values for Cu were 2.51 and 12.51, respectively, indicating a moderate to very high degree of contamination. Unsurprisingly, the pollution load index was >1, indicating the extent of pollution within the study area. The hazard quotient values indicated high exposure-related risks for Pb (16.95), Zn (3.56), Cd (1.47), and As (1.46) for allotment land use and As (1.96) for residential land use. The cancer-related risk values were higher than the acceptable range of 1.0 × 10−6 to 1.0 × 10−4. The cancer risk factor indicated that Cr and As were the major human health risk hazards.

A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard by Connie Cronley

Reviewed by: A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard by Connie Cronley Michelle M. Martin A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard. By Connie Cronley. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2021. ix + 295 pp. Illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, index. $26.95 paper. The American Progressive Era created unlikely heroes and heroines of men and women who sought to create a better world for those deemed less fortunate. Catherine “Kate” Barnard (1875–1930) ignited the Oklahoma political landscape in the early twentieth century with her fiery determination to protect the underrepresented, speak for the voiceless, and elevate the downtrodden. After serving in a clerical position for the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature, Barnard was selected to represent the territory as a hostess at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. While there she met social reformer Jane Addams and experienced slum life firsthand. When Barnard returned to Oklahoma, she embarked upon a career of charity work and prison and work reform. She was twice elected to serve as the commissioner of charities and corrections, the first woman to be elected to statewide office in Oklahoma. As charities and corrections commissioner, Barnard worked to improve conditions in Oklahoma’s prisons and alleviate poverty and suffering across the state. When she took up the plight of protecting Indigenous orphans, and their allotment lands and natural resources, from unscrupulous guardians, her political career came to a crashing halt. Over the course of fourteen engagingly written chapters, Connie Cronley traces the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of Barnard. The strength of Cronley’s work lies in her use of Barnard’s personal papers, speeches, and newspaper accounts of her brief yet impactful career in Oklahoma politics and social work. She weaves a story worthy of a Hollywood [End Page 364] biopic that places the reader in the trenches with Barnard as she dueled with politicians, business interests, and unscrupulous characters who profited at the expense of others. Cronley highlights Barnard’s work to protect Oklahoma’s Indigenous minors and those deemed incompetent to handle their own financial affairs. Cronley casts Barnard as the conscience of the fledgling state, battling the forces of political networks of men hellbent on maintaining their own power and lining their pockets. Just as compelling and heartrending is Cronley’s retelling of Barnard’s downfall (at the hands of her political enemies and due to her own relentless pursuit of justice for Indigenous minors) and later years spent in ill health and near obscurity. After reading Cronley’s account of Barnard’s downward spiral, one can picture a weary, worn woman fighting to protect the voiceless while holding body and soul together by a thread. While Cronley’s work is authoritatively researched and masterfully written, her analysis of Kate Barnard’s life and career could have been placed into a wider discussion of women’s social activism and labor organizing in Oklahoma and neighboring Kansas. This analysis would have helped Cronley trace Barnard’s influence on later generations of social reformers in the Great Plains. For readers not acquainted with Barnard’s life, Cronley’s biography is an excellent starting point. Her work dovetails with Lynn Musslewhite and Suzanne Jones Crawford’s One Woman’s Political Journey: Kate Barnard and Social Reform, 1875–1930. Michelle M. Martin Assistant Professor of History, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, OK Copyright © 2023 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Кредитная политика на Южном Урале в начале ХХ века

Relevance. The experience of state regulation of Russia's credit policy is of great practical importance for the modern economic and political development of the country. Currently, current forms of management are being devel-oped, which include credit cooperation. The purpose – analysis of the government's credit policy in the Southern Urals at the beginning of the XX century. Objectives: to determine the forms and main activities of credit cooperation; to study the regional aspects of credit policy in rural areas, to show the features of its implementation in the Southern Urals. Metodology. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity. The methodo-logical basis of the research is a systematic approach. The chronological method and the method of comparative historical analysis are used. Results. At the beginning of the XX century, credit institutions – savings and loan partnerships, most of which functioned in rural areas, became widespread in the Southern Urals. In addition to the main purpose – lending to the small peasant, they were engaged in the sale of bread and other types of agricultural products. Restraining factors for the development of small-scale credit in rural areas were a low level of commodity-money relations on the one hand; legal and class isolation on the other, since there were restrictions on the disposal of peasant property, both allotment land and movable property. Conclusion. Credit policy was one of the results of the development of commodity relations, contributed to providing the most favorable conditions for the development of agriculture in general, had an important impact on the socio-economic development of the South Ural region in the early twentieth century.

Regional Effects of the Stolypin Reform

The main goal of P. A. Stolypin’s reform was to increase yields in peasant farms. The unification of peasant allotments into farms opened the way for the use of more advanced agricultural machinery. Historians argue about the extent to which the reforms affected the dynamics of yields on the eve of the First World War. In recent years, mathematical methods have been used to solve this problem. However, the application of these methods requires careful selection of both independent and dependent variables. In this paper, the share of consolidated lands in the total area of allotment lands in different provinces is used as an independent variable, and the dependent variable is the net grain yield on allotment lands. Correlation analysis shows that, in general, in 43 provinces of European Russia, land consolidation explained 30 % of the yield dynamics. But at the same time, there were very large regional differences. In 26 provinces of Great Russia, the reform did not have a significant impact on yields; in many provinces, yields decreased. The failure of the reform in Great Russia was due to the presence of strong peasant communities here, who practiced land redistribution and resisted the spread of farms. On the contrary, in 11 marginal western and southern provinces, the reform was marked by success. For a long time, communities with hereditary home ownership dominated here, and these communities generally supported Stolypin’s program. The spread of farms has led to a significant increase in yields here, and 50 % of this growth is due to the consolidation of peasant allotments.

Transition from War Communism to NEP in the Cossack Regions of Southern Russia: Features of Interaction between the Government and the Rural Population

This article explores the transition from “war communism” to the New Economic Policy in the Cossack regions of Southern Russia, one of the leading agricultural regions. The authors aim to identify regional features of the transition to the NEP on the Don, Kuban, and Terek in the context of military-political conflict between the authorities and the rural population. The novelty of this study is sources used for the first time: reviews of Special departments of military units and bodies of the Cheka, the North Caucasus Military District, reports of party bodies of the RCP(b), and Cheka organs. The reasons for the slow transition to NEP, weak support for NEP, and resistance to reforms of local party and Soviet employers are identified. The Civil War in the Cossack regions of Southern Russia was the most protracted and fierce, and it was a compound conflict: it combined class, class, and center-regional confrontation. The main subject of the conflict in the agrarian region was the ownership of land and agricultural products. The Soviet system destroyed the local Cossack self-government and abolished the estates, but it forced to preserve the labor allotment land use of the Cossacks. The Don and Kuban were the main sources of food for European Russia, what led to the preservation of the “war-communist” practices of food policy in 1921–1922. The personnel of the party and state authorities remained illiterate, recruited mainly from the inhabitants of other regions, and often underwent rotation. These factors caused not only an escalation of the social conflict, but also a crisis of governance. The transition to the NEP required the gradual restoration of civil peace in the Cossack regions, what was mostly achieved by the end of 1922.

Automated Mapping of Historical Native American Land Allotments at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation Using Geographic Information Systems

The General Allotment Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Act, established the legal basis for the United States government to break up remaining tribally-owned reservation lands in the U.S. by allotting individual parcels to tribal members and selling the remaining “surplus.” This research explores the processes involved in mapping these historical allotments and describes a method to automatically generate spatial data of allotments. A custom geographic information systems (GIS) tool was created that takes tabular based allotment land descriptions and digital Public Land Survey (PLSS) databases to automatically generate spatial and attribute data of those land parcels. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota was used as the initial study area to test the mapping technique, which resulted in successfully auto-mapping over 99.1% of allotted lands on the reservation, including the smallest aliquot parcels. This GIS technique can be used to map any tribal lands or reservation with allotment data available, and currently it can be used to map over 120 individual reservations using publicly available data from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

“My little piece of the planet”: the multiplicity of well-being benefits from allotment gardening

PurposeParticipation in urban horticulture (UH) is increasing in popularity, and evidence is emerging about the wide range of social and environmental benefits “grow your own” can also provide. UH can increase mental and physical well-being, as well as improve nature connectedness, social capital and community cohesion.Design/methodology/approachThis study focusses on allotments, which is one of the dominant forms of UH that takes place in the United Kingdom. 163 volunteers in England and Wales participated in keeping a year-long allotment diary as part of a citizen science project investigating activities on allotment gardens. This study examines the unprompted comments that 96 of these gardeners offered as observations when visiting their allotment plots.FindingsParticipants recorded high levels of social and community activities including the sharing of surplus food produce, knowledge exchange, awareness and interaction with wildlife, emotional connection to their allotment, appreciation of time spent outside and aesthetic delight in the natural world around them.Originality/valueAt a time when waiting lists for allotment plots in the United Kingdom are on the rise, and allotment land is subject to multiple pressures from other forms of development, this study demonstrates that these spaces are important sites not only for food production but also health, social capital and environmental engagement.

Urban food cultivation in the United Kingdom: Quantifying loss of allotment land and identifying potential for restoration

Urban agriculture contributes to food security and human wellbeing and is associated with a wide range of environmental benefits. In the United Kingdom, a substantial proportion of urban agriculture occurs in allotment gardens, and these are a historically significant part of the landscape. However, allotment land provision has declined significantly since its mid-twentieth century peak. Here, we examine the magnitude and nature of this decline using a GIS analysis of historic Ordnance Survey maps covering ten British urban areas from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. We find there has been a 65% decline in allotment land from its peak to 2016, a pattern also reflected in per capita provision, which declined by 62%, demonstrating a long-term trend across the case study areas, and the loss of food provisioning land for an average of 6% of the urban population. We also show that the most at-risk areas for food insecurity have faced eight times the level of allotment closures than the least deprived areas. Assessing subsequent land-use of former allotments, we show that 47% of allotment land is now part of the urban built infrastructure, and 25% is other forms of urban greenspace. Restoration of these greenspace sites to allotments has the potential to meet up to 100% of the current levels of demand for new allotments by residents of our case study areas. Our results demonstrate that whilst a significant amount of urban agricultural land has been lost, opportunities for restoration exist on a substantial scale.

Feeding a city – Leicester as a case study of the importance of allotments for horticultural production in the UK

The process of urbanization has detached a large proportion of the global population from involvement with food production. However, there has been a resurgence in interest in urban agriculture and there is widespread recognition by policy-makers of its potential contribution to food security. Despite this, there is little data on urban agricultural production by non-commercial small-scale growers. We combine citizen science data for self-provisioning crop yields with field-mapping and GIS-based analysis of allotments in Leicester, UK, to provide an estimate of allotment fruit and vegetable production at a city-scale. In addition, we examine city-scale changes in allotment land provision on potential crop production over the past century. The average area of individual allotment plots used to grow crops was 52%. Per unit area yields for the majority of crops grown in allotments were similar to those of UK commercial horticulture. We estimate city-wide allotment production of >1200 t of fruit and vegetables and 200 t of potatoes per annum, equivalent to feeding >8500 people. If the 13% of plots that are completely uncultivated were used this could increase production to >1400 t per annum, feeding ~10,000 people, however this production may not be located in areas where there is greatest need for increased access to fresh fruits and vegetables. The citywide contribution of allotment cultivation peaked in the 1950s when 475 ha of land was allotments, compared to 97 ha currently. This suggests a decline from >45,000 to <10,000 of people fed per annum. We demonstrate that urban allotments make a small but important contribution to the fruit and vegetable diet of a UK city. However, further urban population expansion will exert increasing development pressure on allotment land. Policy-makers should both protect allotments within cities, and embed urban agricultural land within future developments to improve local food security.

АГРАРНАЯ ПОЛИТИКА РОССИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ XIX - НАЧАЛЕ XX В. (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ РЯЗАНСКОЙ ГУБЕРНИИ)

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the agrarian policy of the Russian Empire at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The author substantiates that a complex of socio-economic problems in the country was associated with inadequate land support and the communal system of land tenure of the main taxation estate - the peasantry. By the example of the Ryazan province it is shown that the weak sides of the agrarian sector were the following: the unfavorable conditions of land rent, the increased taxation and the decrease in the paying capacity of the rural population, as well as a low level of agricultural intensification. Basing on the analysis of archival materials and on the attraction of data from the periodical press, the paper establishes that the main task of government policy during that period was to grant peasants the free right to leave the community and to assign allotment land to them for personal property.

Проблема собственности на крестьянские надельные земли в Сибири во второй половине XIX в.

Проблема собственности на крестьянские надельные земли в Сибири во второй половине XIX в.

Evaluation of the impact of asbestos wastes on soils in Emene-Enugu, Southeastern Nigeria.

This study investigated the impacts of asbestos wastes on soils in Emene-Enugu, southeastern Nigeria, generated by the activities of a major asbestos products manufacturing company in southeastern Nigeria. The methods of investigation included vertical electrical sounding (VES), 2-D horizontal resistivity profiling (HRP), induced polarization (IP) survey, chemical analysis of plant tissues and standard penetration tests of soil samples. The 2-D HRP and IP identified six closed waste pits alongside the two active pits. The VES revealed four geoelectrical layers in the area: from bottom to top; the inferred lithologies included dark shale, clay, gravel and recent sands. The geochemical data results revealed that Cd concentration of the soils of the waste pits is above the contaminated land exposure assessment soil guideline value for residential and allotment land uses. The geochemical pollution indices classified the soils as "unpolluted" to "extremely polluted". Bioconcentration factor of Pb in plant tissues was found to be above recommended limits of 0.045. The geotechnical parameters indices revealed that the soils varied from "very soft" to "stiff" and "very loose" to "medium". Soils of the active pits have very low strength and bearing capacity while closed pits have high strength and bearing capacity. It may be safe, therefore, to conclude that as the wastes are completely turned into soils, they will assume geotechnical properties similar to those of natural soils.

Seeking Spatial Representation: Reflections on Participatory Ethnohistorical GIS Mapping of Maidu Allotment Lands

This essay describes an effort to create a user-friendly Geographic Information Systems (GIS) map of historic and contemporary Indian allotment lands in Plumas and Lassen counties. Because of the nonratification of treaties with California tribes, most unrecognized Mountain Maidu do not see themselves spatially represented despite their collective presence. By appropriating tools of representation (maps), and assimilation (allotments), the act of mapping allotments resists the attempted political and spatial erasure of unrecognized California Indians. As allotments continue to change hands today—via hydroelectric and timber projects, conservation initiatives, and housing developments—knowing their location is important for protecting cultural resources and for asserting the significance of Maidu participation in environmental stewardship. A GIS layer of Indian allotment lands in Plumas and Lassen counties, linked to quantitative and qualitative information from allotment files, offers a multileveled understanding of allotments. The mapping process engages dialogues in Participatory GIS (PGIS) and place-making, and raises key questions of power, representation, accessibility, and knowledge. The historic and contemporary contexts for mapping are addressed, and PGIS is evaluated as a tool for liberatory research with community groups.

Toward a Market Economy: Fruit and Vegetable Production by the Peasants of New Russia, 1850–1900

At some point in the 1850s, Andrei Gorlov planted several fruit trees on his farmstead. His neighbours in the village of Bol'shoe Kopanoe, situated on the land mass bordered by Crimea to the south and the Dnieper River to the north, responded with disbelief, envy, and ill will. Villagers broke branches off his saplings as they walked by, or otherwise damaged the trees as much as possible. Still others threatened to gather the entire village assembly and destroy his orchard. But sheer perseverance enabled Gorlov to surmount these difficulties and his steady success in planting and production won the grudging respect of his peers. Soon neighbours appeared at his door for advice on how best to plant and manage their own orchards. By the 1880s almost every one of the 457 households had orchards that averaged no less than 60 trees. Such impressive orchards attracted merchants from distant cities to purchase the harvested fruit, a portion of which was also sold in the expanding urban markets of southern Ukraine.' How extraordinary was the village of Bol'shoe Kopanoe in southern Ukraine before 1900? What motivated Gorlov suddenly to engage in commercial fruit production, and what accounted for the initial ill will shown by fellow villagers? Though we cannot answer these questions in Gorlov's specific instance, this article identifies both the obstacles and catalysts to peasant agricultural innovation in southern Ukraine before 1900. I am especially interested in the development of, and motivation behind, market-oriented agricultural specialization in vegetable and fruit production among peasants of New Russia. Until recently, little attention has previously been given to market gardening in Imperial Russia generally, or southern Ukraine specifically, despite its importance to agricultural economies. At first glance, such neglect might seem appropriate. Agriculture in New Russia was successively dominated by sheep breeding and grain cultivation in the nineteenth century, with the latter predominant by the 1850s. Yet beyond the sheep pastures and wheat fields, peasant fruit orchards flourished in the northern hilly reaches of New Russia, lush market gardens in the environs of Odessa and other cities, and vineyards in the Dniester river valley. Apiculture had made rapid gains in counties along the Dnieper river by 1900. In exceptional instances peasant agriculturalists had abandoned grain cultivation altogether. What prompted the development of peasant market oriented fruit and vegetable production, and what does it tell us about the relationship between the region's peasants and colonists, who comprised more than a tenth of the rural population while owning one fifth of all allotment lands? Finally, what role did the access to markets play in peasant agricultural history? The first half of this article explores the role that fruit and vegetable gardening played in peasant economies of New Russia before the late nineteenth century. My findings correspond with James C. Scott's about peasant villages in contemporary Asia: he calls them precapitalist societies in the sense that they are reluctant to risk and introduce innovations and are motivated by a cautious safety-first principle.4 Ironically, much of the initial expansion in vegetable and fruit production in New Russia also reflected this cautious approach. The fact that peasants of New Russia had a conservative attitude toward agricultural innovation does not mean that they maintained static practices. On the contrary, considerable evidence points to steadily expanding contact between peasant producers in New Russia and regional, national, and international markets. This expansion was stimulated by a growing transportation network, the successful modelling of new agricultural practices by the region's foreign colonists and Orthodox sectarians, and increased zemstvo activity in schools and experimental farms. The second half of the article sketches out this interaction, and the resulting transformation in one aspect of peasant agriculture. …

Conclusion

Abstract At the basis of the "Statute of February 19" lay the liberal bureaucrats' program, which had been elaborated in cooperation with liberal public figures and, in its final and detailed form, in the Editing Commissions in 1859-60. N. A. Miliutin, P. P. Semenov-Tian-Shanskii, Iu. F. Samarin, V. A. Cherkasskii and other members of the Editing Commissions stand out as statesmen who were able, despite their class-bound limitations, to make use of the sociopolitical crisis in the nation to impart to the reform in many respects an irreversible character, to introduce into the emancipation statute provisions that made inevitable the realization of the ultimate goal—the redemption by peasants of allotment land and the transformation of peasants into property owners, while noble landownership was preserved. This outcome of the reform was a consequence of the recognition of "perpetual" or "continual" peasant use of allotment land and of fixing the level of dues payments, regardless of the details (the agreement by members of the Editing Commissions to recalculate dues payments after twenty years was not important in principle). The given provisions (there were others) compelled the seigneurs to transfer to redemption, although under the statute transfer to redemption was voluntary. This conclusion answers the question raised by N. M. Druzhinin about the reasons for a swift transition to redemption despite the fact that it was not obligatory for the landowners. It reveals the transitional character of the state of temporary obligations, one of the basic feudal vestiges in the legislation of 1861, and lays bare the bourgeois essence of the reform.

Native American Women: Our Voice, the Air

American Indian women are a diverse group of people with many different attitudes, opinions, and lifestyles. We are from many different nations, each with separate languages and cultures. We have grown up on reservations, allotment lands, and in urban communities. And yet, in spite of these apparent differences, Indian women have many experiences in common and are now seeking out new forms of survival, new ways of dealing with the complexities of life in contemporary America. The continuation of tribal identity attests to the strengths of American Indians. Commonly seen by outsiders as a vanishing group, tribal people have not only managed to maintain their own traditions, but have been responsible for creating cohesive intertribal communities. Many of the older ways infuse the new, and this transformation has not diminished the traditions of people who must live in a doubly complex bicultural society, but has vitalized cultural identity and created new forms of selfdefinition and change that is positive. For people who are bicultural, and nearly all Indians fit this category, the conflicts and clashes between the world of Anglo and the world of Indian are critical ones. Nevertheless, Indian women have been competently succeeding at functioning equally well in two very different worlds. This is a task that demands strength and intelligence. Indian women are aware of the difficult position of being female and minority. Tribal women have the lowest wages in the country, and often because of that poverty, Indian children are removed from homes and communities more often than children of any other background. Approximately one-third of all Indian children are removed from homes and placed in foster care or adoptive placement. Owanah Anderson, the Choctaw director of OHOYO, the Indian-Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, stated that 67 percent of the Winnebago households are headed by women. is no day care for the children, and the average annual income of each woman is $1,690. She stated, There are those who say women are equal in our cultures. Which ones? Many Indian women's organizations have been formed in response to this question. The North American Indian Women's Association, Women of All Red Nations, and OHOYO are just a few of these organizations. Feminism is a complicated issue for Indian women because what affects the women also affects the entire community. As individual nations, we have allegiances to the members of our tribes that seldom exist for non-Indian American women. Political and economic injustices are practiced against entire tribes, and are not limited to just the women. The issue of survival affects all people and the major efforts of Indian feminists have been struggles against the dominant society. In the article submitted by Shirley Hill Witt, Annie Dodge Wauneka, a Navajo activist, urges Indian women to become more active in politics and states that she sees the discrimination of Indian women as a by-product of federal intervention into tribal affairs, not discrimination which has grown from within Indian communities.