At first Levin had thought of giving up the whole farming of the
land just as it was to the peasants, the laborers, and the
bailiff on new conditions of partnership; but he was very soon
convinced that this was impossible, and determined to divide it
up. The cattle-yard, the garden, hay fields, and arable land,
divided into several parts, had to be made into separate lots.
The simple-hearted cowherd, Ivan, who, Levin fancied, understood
the matter better than any of them, collecting together a gang of
workers to help him, principally of his own family, became a
partner in the cattle-yard. A distant part of the estate, a
tract of waste land that had lain fallow for eight years, was
with the help of the clever carpenter, Fyodor Ryezunov, taken by
six families of peasants on new conditions of partnership, and
the peasant Shuraev took the management of all the vegetable
gardens on the same terms. The remainder of the land was still
worked on the old system, but these three associated partnerships
were the first step to a new organization of the whole, and they
completely took up Levin's time.
It is true that in the cattle-yard things went no better than
before, and Ivan strenuously opposed warm housing for the cows
and butter made of fresh cream, affirming that cows require less
food if kept cold, and that butter is more profitable made from
sour cream, and he asked for wages just as under the old system,
and took not the slightest interest in the fact that the money he
received was not wages but an advance out of his future share in
the profits.
It is true that Fyodor Ryezunov's company did not plough over the
ground twice before sowing, as had been agreed, justifying
themselves on the plea that the time was too short. It is true
that the peasants of the same company, though they had agreed to
work the land on new conditions, always spoke of the land, not as
held in partnership, but as rented for half the crop, and more
than once the peasants and Ryezunov himself said to Levin, "If
you would take a rent for the land, it would save you trouble,
and we should be more free." Moreover the same peasants kept
putting off, on various excuses, the building of a cattleyard and
barn on the land as agreed upon, and delayed doing it till the
winter.
It is true that Shuraev would have liked to let out the kitchen
gardens he had undertaken in small lots to the peasants. He
evidently quite misunderstood, and apparently intentionally
misunderstood, the conditions upon which the land had been given
to him.