multi-course systems covered just 3% of arable in the Central Black-Earth region, and the situation was even worse elsewhere. But thereafter rapid progress was made in the grain-surplus areas. It also continued in the grain-deficit areas. By 1927 multi-course rotations covered 17.3% of the sown area in the Russian Federation as a whole. And `[b]y 1928 grass had almost everywhere replaced fallow, the most important exception being the Central Black-Earth region'. Broad-strip consolidation The natural concomitant of the improved crop rotation was land consolidation. On wholly consolidated farms (khutory and otruby) multi-course systems had largely superseded the three-course one. But, after the Revolution, such farms had largely been broken up outside their established areas. The new regime generally favoured partial consolidation into broadened strips, which was less individualistic, and this was the form that consolidation usually took. Multi-course rotations were usually established on consolidated land, and the two were usually inaugurated simultaneously. A certain amount of strip-consolidation was necessary in such circumstances to prevent multiplication of strips (if a mir changed from a three-course to a six-course rotation, for example, the number of strips per household would have otherwise doubled). Broad-strip consolidation also addressed the problems of over-narrow strips and, in large communities, of the amount of travelling from strip to strip. In the advanced region of Moscow province, 32.1% of peasant households had improved open-field (i.e. broadened-strip) tenure in 1917. In 1925 almost 7.5% of miry in the USSR had broad strips. Further progress was made in the later 1920s. In the lead was the North Caucasus, in which 19.4% of the agricultural area had been converted to broad strips by the end of 1927, and 21.9% in 1928. Horticulture In the later 19th century the growth of towns and cities in central Russia encouraged the development of market gardening and truck farming in this region. By the eve of the 1917 Revolution the garden economy was developing quickly. See also Agriculture of the Soviet Union Agriculture in Russia Repartition (Periodic redistribution of peasants' landholdings) Notes Economy of the Russian Empire Agriculture in Russia