Alexander Ivanovich Ertel’s library had a lot of books on agriculture. In the mid-1890s, the writer retired from literature and became the manager of the Khludov estate in the village of Alexandrovka, Tambov Governorate. In a letter to his eldest daughter Natalya on November 23, 1903, he stressed that being engaged in agriculture allowed him to see the reality with his own eyes, have a positive influence on the people’s lives and experience a lot of new interesting things.
In a letter to the actress and teacher Zinaida Sergeyevna Sokolova on April 2, 1899, he commented on the changes in his life,