Breaking the Land

We now get to the core contents of this section of text. We have already addressed the first sentence about plowing and harvesting. By the time this text is written, the colonists had broken the land to some extent and also harvested several times. But the use of "However," in the next sentence gives us some indication that it was difficult. Eight to a dozen oxen had to be harnessed to a wooden plow (the iron plow came later) 7 to overturn the virgin steppe land!

The Arzis 1848 chronicle says that most of the colonists were "predominantly people of few means already in their [previous] homeland." It adds: "Yet we note that some had means upon arrival and soon bought a cow and a horse." It is unlikely, therefore, that any one colonist had the 8-12 oxen needed to do the plowing. Other 1848 chronicles mention that draught animals were supplied to the settlers by the Crown.

However, as the Borodino chronicle implies, the Czarist government was not realistically generous, considering the difficulty in breaking the untamed steppe land. "To get established . . . ," the chronicle says, "each family obtained ... a yoke of oxen. . . ." At two oxen per family, this meant that 4-6 farmers needed to harness their animals together to do this first plowing in Arzis with 8-12 head.