A TOUR OF RUSSIAN FARMS .sx Sir Geoffrey Haworth .sx MANY years ago I had heard that the Russians were breeding a very large cow which was giving a great deal of milk and also being used for beef .sx A Swedish friend led me to believe that this cow might be found at Karavayevo , some 200 miles north-east of Moscow .sx This farm turned out to be outside the scope of Intourist , but largely through the good offices of SCR we were able to arrange a visit last June .sx Kostroma , the nearest town , can only be reached by rail , and the only train leaves Moscow at the rather inconvenient hour of 1.20 a.m. As soon as we arrived any doubts about our welcome were quickly dispelled .sx We were met by a large delegation , and after my wife had been presented with three bouquets we proceeded to our hotel .sx Here we were given an enormous breakfast ( we had already unwisely had one on the train ) , and after many toasts we set out for the farm .sx After examining some more-than-life-size busts of farm workers who had distinguished themselves ( several of whom were in our party ) , we went to see some of the Kostroma cows .sx I can say at once that they fully came up to our expectations .sx We asked if one or two could come out of the cowshed to be photographed , and later we found ourselves seated behind a table covered with a red velvet cloth while a full parade of bulls and cows was led past us by white-coated attendants of both sexes .sx About 50 years ago some Swiss cows were imported into the district and crossed with the native Yaroslav .sx In 1920 some of the best hybrids were brought to Karavayevo .sx A process of selection for milking and butter-fat qualities was continued for 20 years , and finally in 1944 the Kostroma breed was officially recognised and registered .sx In 1951 the herd average was 14,093lb .sx and in 1953 over 160 cows gave 14,200lb .sx or over .sx The highest individual yield comes from a cow called Grosa .sx In her fifth lactation she gave 36,304lb .sx of milk at 3.7 per cent butter fat ( 1,343lb .sx fat) .sx Another outstanding record came from Poslushnitza 2nd- 35,776lb .sx at 3.92 per cent ( 1,402lb .sx fat) .sx Although both herd and individual yields have now been surpassed by Friesian cows in this country , it would be hard to find so many cows of uniform excellence anywhere else .sx Their weight is from 1,200 to 1,600 pounds and they have good beef qualities .sx We were accompanied round the farm by a very charming man called Steiman .sx Now in his 70s , he was responsible for selecting much of the foundation stock for the herd .sx He also started the 'cold house' method of calf rearing , which is still in use .sx Calves are taken from their dams at birth and kept in an unheated house where the temperature from December to March is usually below freezing point .sx It is claimed that at these temperatures bacteria are rendered harmless and that hardy , healthy calves are produced .sx Scours and pneumonia are unknown .sx In the summer young calves are housed in large airy kennels in the fields , where they are fed on milk , hay and concentrates .sx After a look at the older young stock , which live outside with an open shelter all the year round , we were taken to the office building and given another gigantic meal , accompanied by vodka , cognac and wine .sx Farm hospitality on a colossal scale became quite an important item in our lives on the whole tour .sx ( We were assured that such meals were not the everyday farm practice !sx ) It was essential to know that the vast spread of cold meats , salads , fish , eggs and cheese on the table was but an appetiser , and that soup , perhaps two hot dishes and sweet were to follow .sx It was also wise to decide on vodka or cognac at the beginning of the meal and to stick to one for the innumerable toasts that were drunk throughout .sx We usually started with '11Mir i druzhba' ( Peace and friendship ) and later , for variety , passed on to such things as 'Better silage' or 'Higher butter fat' .sx Nearly always at one point in the proceedings came the question :sx 'And now tell us what you think of our farm .sx ' There followed complete silence , with all eyes and ears on me .sx I was able to give sincere praise for many things we saw , and luckily the criticisms I made were usually met with nodding of heads and murmurs of ~'Yes , we know .sx ' Perhaps I should say here that , in addition to Karavayevo , we visited state and collective farms in Krasnodar , Piatigorsk and the Sigulda district of Latvia .sx The first thing that strikes one is the large scale of everything- acreages from 7,854 at Karavayevo , which is mainly a stock farm , to 40,000 at Krasnodar , which is mainly arable .sx At the latter the growing of wheat , barley , maize and sugar beet is highly mechanised .sx Gone are the days when Cossacks galloped across the grassy steppe on superb horses .sx Instead , we drove in jeeps round fields of 490 acres bordered with shelter belts of fruit trees .sx The average yield of wheat is 29cwt .sx per acre .sx All the farms we visited sold cream and butter and fed the skim to pigs .sx Their aim , therefore , was to breed and feed for high butter fat .sx Every farm aimed at being self-contained :sx they had their own machine stations , vets , zootechnicians ( we should perhaps say livestock specialists ) , crop specialists and accountants ; and often their own schools , hospitals , savings banks and cinemas .sx A very important development is the building of research stations on the farms instead of in neighbouring towns .sx We saw blocks of flats for farm workers and many more under construction , but we also went into two-roomed wooden houses of a very primitive nature , where cooking in summer was done in a home-made mud stove in the garden .sx Both collective and state farm directors seem agreed that the pattern of the future is for even larger-scale organisation , with the housing of workers in large villages or even towns .sx Already some collective farms have abandoned the annual shareout in favour of a guaranteed monthly cash wage .sx State farms emphasise that their well-being depends on the year's results .sx The state will keep them going however badly they do , but on their annual results depends the amount of money they may spend on amenities such as 'Palaces of Culture' , cinemas , sending workers free to the Black Sea resorts , and so on .sx Thus each type of farm tries to adopt the better points of the others' systems , and already there is a growing similarity between them .sx It is not easy to make comparisons between the farming systems of Russia and this country .sx We both have the same sort of technical problems to deal with and I did not find any new solutions on the farms we visited .sx Moreover , their use of manpower per beast or per acre is very high .sx What is impressive is the enthusiasm and thoroughness with which they carry out their systems :sx grooming of cows , attention to their feet , feeding of calves , detailed keeping of farm records .sx But I should like to end by saying that what impressed us most was the warmth of our welcome .sx As far as we could learn , we were , in every case , the first English people to visit the farm .sx The director , with half a dozen experts , was always willing to give up a whole day to show us round and entertain us .sx Each member of the staff had a formidable array of facts and figures at his or her finger-tips .sx I am afraid my inability to produce similar figures for this country or even for my own farm must have created a bad impression .sx I do wish there could be more exchange visits between the farmers of our two countries .sx We are far too ignorant of each other's lives .sx Surveys and Reviews .sx RECENT BOOKS ON TOLSTOY IN ENGLISH .sx J. S. Spink .sx IT MUST be admitted that none of the books on Tolstoy , in English , which have appeared in the last decade is worthy of his greatness .sx Most of them belong to a literary genre which is peculiarly Anglo-Saxon , namely the intimate life-story told for its own sake , and cannot but tend , by their very nature , to belittle the object of their attentions , in essence the same as those lavished by the Sunday press on its victims .sx Biography becomes trivial when its sole object is to introduce us , like prying tourists , into the intimacy of the great .sx One could call such intimate life-stories 'stately homes literature' .sx Their authors do not seek , as did Sainte-Beuve , the master of biographical criticism , to present a full-length psychological portrait of a man .sx They do not study the genesis and development of works of art .sx They are not critical studies at all .sx Nor is there anything of the epic , the tragedy or the comedy in their technique ; they resemble the popular novel .sx Lady Cynthia Asquith's Married to Tolstoy ( Hutchinson , 1960 ) is very U in tone , and sometimes the U language is that used in the women's magazines :sx 'Fortunately the Czar , who was giving another audience , was unable to receive Sonya for a quarter of an hour , so it may be hoped that before she was summoned she had time to readjust her stay-laces and recover her breath' ( p. 149) .sx However , the book , which is drawn from the obvious sources , is not pretentious and can be accepted on its own terms .sx It begins with the words ~'Marriage to a genius can seldom be easy' and may be read with a certain amount of pleasure on that level .sx M. Hofmann and A. Pierre's By Deeds of Truth :sx the Life of Leo Tolstoy ( Hanison , 1959 ) is similar .sx It is a translation of a book published in French in 1934 and its reissue in English ( printed in the USA , bound in London ) was doubtless motivated commercially by the 50th anniversary of Tolstoy's death , though it must be noted that the story of Tolstoy's love affairs , courtship and marriage has been told every few years in books published in English , with apparently no other aim that the retailing of private lives to the public .sx Tikhon Polner's Tolstoy and his Wife ( Jonathan Cape , 1946 ) , first published in French in 1928 , belongs to this category .sx One of the strangest items in the collection is the preface to the English translation of Tolstoy's daughter's My Father ( Harpers , New York , 1953) .sx The Russian original was published by a semi-official US agency in 1953 .sx It is a rehash of The Tragedy of Tolstoy ( 1933 ) , written in Moscow but published in the States , after its author's arrival there .sx The preface to the English translation of My Father is written in a recriminatory style evidently intended to do its bit in the cold war :sx 'I could not spare all the time I wanted and had to work mainly during my so-called free days .sx ' This tone is absent from Alexandra Tolstoy's own Russian preface , which betrays , on the contrary , a real modesty , a disposition of mind which , alas , does not save her from the expression of class sentiments none the less repellent for being " ve :sx 'Though sometimes the house-servants were severely flogged in the stables , many of them became part of the family to the extent of forgetting they were serfs .sx ' This serves as background painting , the only kind of historical perspective attempted by writers of intimate biographies , and dating , as a literary technique , from the time of Walter Scott's historical novels .sx There is a similar avoidance of historical perspective in Professor E. J. Simmons's Leo Tolstoy ( 1946 ) , reprinted as a Vintage paper-back ( New York , 1960 ) , and this book , for all its wealth of factual information , is therefore merely another version of 'the Tolstoy story' .sx There is this to be said for T. Redpath's short study entitled Tolstoy ( Bowes and Bowes , 1960) :sx that its author does not seek to reduce Tolstoy's doctrines to the level of 'views' , to be explained away by psychological biography .sx