clean legged animal. He had no doubt that Mr. Pickering Phipps would much rather have a light active animal than one of those great heavy cart horses which were seen moving so slowly over the stones of the streets of London. Mr. FICKERING PHIPPS, M P., said he was afraid he might be thought presumptous in offering a few remarks on the very valuable paper which had been read by Prof. Pritchard. ("No, no.") Very often when there was a valuable exhaustive paper one consequence of that was, that the discussion was not quite 80 good as it otherwise might have been, but on that occasion the gentlemen who had spoken had expressed themselves so felicitously, and had shown such a thorough knowledge of the subject, that it seemed like presumption for one who had had so little to do with the breeding of horses to venture to express an opinion; but of this, he thought, they might all be sure, that there was a great amount of disease in horses which might be prevented by careful attention to the selection of the dam and the sire. It had often struck him in reference to that matter that people who intended to do a great deal of good did a great deal of harm. For instance, it had been a practice with several noblemen to keep a good horse in order to encourage the breeding of good horses amongst persons who were their neighbours, and, generally speaking, a mare could be brought to that horse without any great expense, perhaps simply for the payment of a fee of half-a-crown to the groom. He had noticed that in one or two cases of that kind the result was not at all satisfactory. The fact that there was a sire of some degree of reputation had encouraged persons to send to that sire a number of mares which were totally unfit for the purpose of breeding, and the effect was that instead of what was desired, an improvement in the breed of horses, there had been a great deterioration. He was particularly struck with the remark of Professor Pritchard that the sire left a strong impress for a very great length of time upon the production of animals. In going along the road in a particular part of the country, he had often been reminded, as he looked in the fields, of a well-known bull which was in that locality about twenty years ago. A gentleman in that district who took great interest in the breeding of shorthorns, and who was in the habit of obtaining prizes, who had a herd of four or five eattle, bought a good blood-red shorthorn bull, and one could not help being struck, even now, with the striking resemblance found in all the progeny. Another point which naturally attracted attention was the great difference between buying and selling when there was a horse to be disposed of. He was unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case might be, a large buyer of cart horses, that was to say he often bought a good cart horse to keep up his stud. He was obliged to buy a horse for his business about every three week. In fact when he saw what appeared a good cart horse, he purchased it whether he actually wanted it or not, and he thought that was the best way of accomplishing his object; but when he went to look at a horse and pointed out what appeared to him to be its faults, he always found that he was considered to be wrong. For instance, if he spoke of sidebones, and pointed to a particular formation of the foot as a proof of the defect, the man who had to sell would not admit the existence of anything of the kind. He did not think it would be possible to have diagrams, as was suggested by the first speaker that evening, which would determine such questions as between buyer and seller. The great matter, as Professor Pritchard pointed out, was to take care in selecting animals for breeding, that there was nothing in the shape of hereditary disease either in the sire or in the mare. Mr. WALTER GILBEY (Elsenham Hall, Essex) said he believed there would be no lack of improvement in the quality of the mares in any locality where there were good sound stallions. Four or five years ago, there was a scarcity of mares possessing size and quality in hisneighbourhood. Efforts were made to supply stallions through the medium of a Limited liability company, and two animals, the best to be procured, were brought into the neighbourhood, £3 8. being fixed upon as the service fee. The effect was to induce the breeders to possess an improved class of mares to send to the horses. It was not always that people could be got to take the initiative in such matters, but it was taken in that case, and every one now felt that the result had proved most satisfactory. He was satisfied that if really good sized, sound stallions were imported into any locality, there wou'd be a demand on their services at remunerative fees. The paper which had been read that "vening was an admirable one, and he hoped the result of it and the discussion would be to give a great impetus to the movement for the breeding of the Shire borse," for which there is an undoubted demand, and which, also, is remune. rative to the farmer to breed, Mr. AVELING (Rochester) said horses did not seem to be anything like perfect yet; on the contrary, they appeared to give a great deal o' trouble. Owing to some cause or other a great number of cases of diseases occurred, and it might perhaps be well to consider whether it would not be possible to substitute for the horse something that would give a little less trouble. Some years back he had unfortunately a great deal of experience with regard to the diseases to which Professor Pritchard alluded, and had suffered from all of them in a more or less degree. He had also had a little experience in the early part of his life with regard to bre:ding, and he had found that it sometimes happened that even when the best sire and the best mare were put together the result was not quite so satisfactory as it might be supposed from some of the remarks made that evening. In the case of the iron horse there was nothing of that kind. If anything were wrong with his tubes it was easy to put it right; there was in that case no difficulty in making a diagnosis of the disease and applying a remedy. Those whom he was addressing, might say it was natural that he should talk in that way because he was interested in the matter. They were quite right in doing their best to improve the cart horse as far as possible, but it was not horses that would do the chief work of the future in farming. It should be remembered that, however good their horses might become, they would always be dependent to a great extent upon the skill of their men, and if they had ever so good a horse they must have a man who was equally good to manage him. A great deal of care and attention was necessary to keep a horse in good condition, both on the part of the owner and on the part of those whom he employed; even when horses were properly broken, it was not easy to hammer into them how they ought to be managed. He knew that what he was saying might sound to some rather shoppy, but he repeated that the bulk of the future work of agriculture would not be done by horses. Mr. T. CARROLL (Longcliffe Lodge, Loughborough), thought the great thing to be aimed at was the impressing of fixity of type in the cart horse. That question had been under consideration for some time, but the efforts made to solve it had not yet had a successful issue. Ile had understood that a book of pedigree was about to be published, and he hoped that that would be made use of by men in various parts of the country, and that most persons would try in future to breed from pedigree. It was in that way that they might expect to get a good type for the cart horse. He agreed with Mr, Finlay Dun with regard to the importance of attending to temper in horses. There had been neglect in reference to that matter. Ile thought it would be well if Professor Pritchard or some one would be good enough to give them information as to the breeding of cross-bred horses. In his opinion the action of the Shire Cart Horse Association would do a great deal of good. Mr. S. SMILY (Upper Clapton, N.E.) said he should like to know whether, it a very good stallion went to a mare having an hereditary disease it would be likely afterwards to communicate it to other mares. The CHAIRMAN, in closing the discussion, said he should not trouble the meeting with any remarks of his own, because he must say, like his friend, Mr. Wood, that he knew very little about it. Mr. Phipps said that when he went to buy horses the sellers seemed to know nothing about the existence of such a disease as sidebones. He had un'ortunately found himself in a similar position; but, on the other hand, when he had had to sell a horse, dealers had taught him that there was such a thing; he learned it from the fact that so much less money went into his pocket. Professor PRITCHARD then replied. First, he said, he would observe, in answer to Mr. Garrett's question whether navic dar disease was hereditary, that at the present time very few persons who had studied the matter seemed to have any doubt that it was so. Indeed it had been proved, he feared, over and over again by female and male horses becoming affected, they having been bred from sires and dams which were subject to it. Even after an experience extending over thirty or forty years a man might entertain doubts as to whether a horse was affected with bone spavin or with navicular disease; but in the case of sideboues there could be no reasonable doubt, A man had only to draw the hand open down the back If there of the leg on to the fleshy part of the heel. were an absence of sidebone the part would readily yield to pressure, while, on the other hand, if sidebone existed the part would feel as hard as the bones in any other part of the body. As regarded what Mr. Street said respecting the contagious character of the disease among his hores, if the disease did not become chronic he should donbt whether it was in fact ophthalmia at all. He should rather think it was simply a bad csse of influenza in which the eyes got into an inflamed condition, than that it was due to any contagion or infection. As respected bony enlargement, he would remark that when an animal once became affected with splint, or ringhone, or sidebone, he never got rid of it. When once an animal became affected with splint it was always affected, and the same remark applied to spavin and to sidebone. What had been said with reference to sidebone giving rise to lameness, and making its appearance more frequently in horses which worked on roads than in horses employed in farm work, he might observe that that clearly illustrated part of the theory in his paper with regard to the transmission of hereditary diseases from the sire and dam to their progeny. He said that if an animal were not subject to an exciting cause, which was calculated to develop a disease, one or two generations might pass away without that disease making its appearance, but that all the while it existed in the animal system, and only required an exciting cause to make it seen. A horse accustomed only to farm work was put to hard road work, and then sidebones made their appearance, and the result would lameness. probably be There were high-stepping carriage horses aud other kinds of horses hammering their Not feet in London week after week, and year after year. one in fifty of those horses had sidebones, because no predisposition existed. If a cart horse had been bred from a sound animal they work him on the stones as other horses were worked upou them, without sidebones being produced. He did not say that sidebones might not occasionally be produced in sound animals, but he believed that in nine cases out of ten they were the result of a predisposition. He had stood with astonishment alongside judges at horse shows when horses having sidebones had been placed before them and they had said, "Oh, it's only a nut or something of that kind," and had awarded to such animals a prize. While such things took place it was not to be wondered at that so many cart horses were affected with disease. He had listeued with great pleasure to the remarks of Mr. Finlay Dun with reference to the effects of hereditary predisposition, not only on the conformation of cart horses, but also on the temperament. As regarded American hors. s some gentlemen present might have formed the idea that people in America drove their horses without any bit. He did no think, however, that Mr. Dan could have meant that. [Mr. FINLAY DUN: "No."] What he meant, no doubt, was that the animals depended more upon the voice of the driver than upon the handling of the reins. He was inclined to agree with Mr. Fowler that the physique and form of the horse depended mainly upon the sire; and he thought that the temperament-he could not go so far with Mr. Fowler as to Bay the internal organisation-depended to a considerable extent on the dam. There were, indeed various opinions on. that point, and many altogether disbelieved in the As Fowler's theory. to curve, that was a disease of the hock which some regarded as in Some way hereditary and others would not admit to be so. Пle looked upon it as hereditary, not on the same grounds as some considered it to be so, but simply because the form of the limb was hereditary. If there were a limb which had not a sufficient angle at the hock, or a limb in which the angle at the hock was greater than the ordinary angle, he thought there must be an hereditary disease that gave rise to the curve. There were different epinions with regard to the cause of the carve. Some persons held that it arose from a sprain of one of the ligatures at the back of the calcis. His own opinion was that the membrane-the membrane which assisted very much in the lubrication of that part of the animal,had undergone a strain, and although the disease might not be hereditary, a want of proper care often brought out a predisposition to sprain, and he maintained that in that sense the disease concurred with He fully hereditary. WAS Mr. Phipps as to the difference between buyers and correctness of Mr. sellers, but that applied not merely to the buying and selling Major DASHWOOD (Kirtlington, Oxford) said, in moving a vote of thanks to Professor Pritchard for his very excellent paper, that it should be borne in mind that that gentleman had a very large experience in connection with the management of horses in London. A question having been asked in regard to the Cart Horse Stud Book, he wished to say that he would be in the hands of all the members of the Association on the following day. Iu reference to Mr. Finlay Dan's interesting remarks with regard to the mouth of the horse, he would observe that he understood him to mean that the formation of a good mouth depended very much upon the judgment and skill of the man who rode or drove. Mr. E. STANFORD, in seconding the motion, said he should have been glad to have heard the Professor's opinion with regard to what was called "bog spavin." The motion having been carried unanimously, Professor PRITCHARD, in returning thanks, after again apologising for the brevity of his paper and expressed his gratification that there had been such a good discussion, said, in reply to Mr. Stanford, that bog spavia was simply an enlargement of the capsule of the principle joint in the hock, and was due to the secretion of a considerable amount of fluid there, and that it was of very little consequence, adding that he had seen hundreds, and he might even say thousands, of cases, and that he could not call to mind more than one or two in which that form of spavin caused a serious defect in the animal. The proceedings terminated with a vote of thanks to the chairman. IX WORTH. A meeting of the Ixworth Farmers' Club was held on March 1, at Ixworth, to listen to a paper introduced by Mr. J. C. Buckmaster, F.C.S., upon " Government Classes for Teaching the Principles of Agriculture." E. Greene, Esq., M.P., President of the Club, presided. Mr. BUCKMASTER said that the Science and Art Departmeut was now controlled by the Committee of Council on Education, and, under its direction, a sum of money was devoted to the purpose of promoting classes in the various branches of elementary science. The principles of agriculture had recently been added to these. In order to form one of these science classes it was necessary that a local Committee be formed, to consist of at least five persons, one of whom must be the chairman and another the secretary. The duties of the Committee were to communicate with the Department and mke all the necessary arrangements for the tuition and examination of pupils. The Science and Art Department had nothing to do with the arrangement with the teacher, clas es must be held in a suitable room, and with regard to any necessary apparatus, the Department was prepared to assist to the extent of 50 per cent. Instruction must be given The by a qualid teacher, who had passed the examinations or held the certificate of the Royal Agricultural Society or the diplo na of the Agricultural College at Cirencester. With the help of some text-books an elementary teacher of average intelligence would have no difficulty in qualifying for these examinations. The lessons would be given by the teacher in accordance with the syllabus issued by the Science and Art Department. The elementary syllabus was as follows: (1). Soils. The different kinds of soils, Variations in their composition. Variations in their texture and condition. Substances found in plants. Source from which these are obtained. Exhaustion of the land. The essential differences between good and poor land. The necessity for manure. The The use of production and waste of farmvard manure. artificial manures; how manufactured, and the reasons for their employment. Lime, marl, chalk, as manures. (2). Tillage operatious. Reasons for ploughing and mowing land by implements. Any changes produced in the soil and their influence on the growth of crops. Drainage of the land, when necessary, and its mode of action. (3). Cropa grown on how crops, various kinds of soils. Succession or rotation of selected and arranged. Good courses of cropping. Bad courses of cropping. (4). Live stock. Best kinds of stock for various farms. The economy of good stock management. Ordinary rules for preservation of health. Special requirements for making land either a good dairy farm, or a good sheep farm, or good grazing lad. (5). Food. Chemical matters present in various kinds of food, in milk, green food, hay and corn, &c., &c. The different materials necessary for the growth of the body. Maintenance of heat. Process of fatteuing animals. MIDLAN D. The annual meeting was held recently, at the Midland Hotel in this town, Lord Ernest Seymour, the president, in the chair, and was numerously attended. On the motion of ALDERMAN BIGGS, seconded by Mr.. FREER, Mr. Henry Wiggin was unanimously elected vics president of the club for the ensuing year. Mr. FINLAY DUN read a paper on "American Agricultural Imports and their effects on British Farming." He commenced by showing that, besides supplying the wants of forty-five millions of the population, America had last year a surplus of 7 million cwts. to spare for Great Britain, being double the quantity we imported in 1878, and four times what we received in 1877. Two years ago the United States could only spare one-fourth of her wheat crop; but so rapidly have her capabilities for its cultivation increased, that she can export one-third of her large yield of 448,000,000 of bushels, of which large tota! Great Britain has taken annually about nine million quarters. Within the last seven years America commenced the export of live cattle, upwards of 30,000 being sent over here during 1879; and this year they are on the increase, notwithstanding the advance of shipping rates. Still more recent and equally rapid has been the growth of the dead meat trade, 2,000 carcases of beef and about 1,000 of mutton being at Within the last five years there present imported every week. has also been developed an enormous trade in canned, preserved, and salted meats, for which it is estimated the British public last year paid two millions sterling. The pigs of the United Kingdom, although they number a little over three millions, do not half suffice for the demands for bacon, pork, and lard, for which we annually pay ten millions sterling to the United States. About two-fifths of our cheese is foreign, much the larger part of it, which costs us ten millions sterling annually, coming from the United States. Two-thirds of the butter we consume is foreign. The bills for imported eggs amount to 2 millons annually; while about the same amount is spent in potatoes, and half a million in onions. Such facts demonstrated that it was not from want of good customers that farming in this country had of late years paid indifferently. The seasons had been against the farmer. His expenditure, too, had been steadily increasing; rents, rates, and labour had advanced; his crops had been steadily waning, while keen foreign competition, amply supplying deficiencies, had prevented increment in the value of home produce, which, in the old times, would have made up for shortened quantity. The straits to which the British agriculturist had been reduced were too well known and widely felt to require description. The great question was, can they be diminished and remedied? Rents would right themselves to altered circumstances; rates and taxes would be equitably adjusted. We should tide over the protracted period of bad trade, which had been intensified and prolonged by the continued series of five bad harvests. There was no probability that the keen competition of America would diminish, but it did not follow that British agriculture was doomed, that all farmers must emigrate, although many of them would be better for so doing, or that English land would go out of cultivation. We had great natural advantages, wealth, enterprise, experience, and proximity to the st markets in the world. Did the British agriculturists ma e the most of these advantages? Americ is zealous an untiring in developing her great capabilities. Masters and men, especially out west, work harder, and are not so chary about long hours as most British workinen are. Labour-saving Was it machinery is much used even on the smaller farms. not possible for British agriculturists to imitate the Americans in these respects. TRADE IS A LITTLE DULL.-One of those gentlemen who has recently returned from a trip for Thistle Brothers & Co., of the city, did not show a very large exhibit of orders to balance the liberal expense aceount allowed him by the firm, and Mr. Thistle, after looking over his returns, says, "Mr. Rataplan, 1 am afraid you did not approach the dealers in the right way. I used to be very successful in this line. Now, just suppose me to be Mr. Bighor, of Sellent, Ill., and show me the way you introduce the house." Accordingly, Mr. Rataplan stepped out of the counting-room aud then reentered, hat in hand, inquiring, "Is Mr. Bigher in ?" That is my name," said Thistle, urbanely. My name is Rataplan, sir. I represent the house of Thistle Brothers & Co., of Boston." Thistle, in his character of a Western merchant, here rose, offered the salesman a chair, and expressed his pleasure at seeing him. "I am stopping with Overcharge at the Stickem House, and have a fine unbroken lot of samples, which I would like to show you; think we can offer you especial advantages," &. And Ritaplan delivered himself of a neat speech in professional style. "Very well, very well," said Thistle. "I don't see but that you understand the way to get a customers. "Excuse me, Mr. Thistle," said Rataplan, "I am afraid you don't understand the style of Western merchants just now. Suppose you exchange places with me and repeat this rehearsal." Certainty," said Thistle, and, picking up his hat, he stepped out. Returning, he found Rataplan with the chair tilted back, hat cocked fiercely over the right eye, his heels planted on Thistle's polished desk, and a lighted cigar between his teeth. Thistle looked a little staggered, but nevertheless he commenced, "Is Mr. Bigher in ?" Yes, he is," responded Rataplan, blowing a cloud of pure Connecticut into Thistle's eyes. "Who the devil are you?" "I represent the house of Thistle Brothers and Co.," said the astonished employer, coughing about a quart of smoke from his throat. "The blazes you do. Ara you one of that concern ? " "No, sir, I am not," said Thistle. "Well it's d―d lucky for you that you are not; for I have had two drummers to one customer in my store for the last two months, and if I could get hold of one of the dd fools that send 'em out here at this time, I'm darned if I wouldn't boot him clean out of the town of Sellout." "That'll do, that'll do, Mr. Rataplan," said Thistle. "I have no doubt you did the best you could for the interest of the house, Trade is a little dull.-Bulletin. Que COMPROMISE.-While one of the sanitary police was moving through the alleys of Cass-avenue, New York, the other day, he came upon two bad nuisances at once. family had thrown a heap of garbage over the fence, and the other had dumped over an old mattress, and two or three dead eats. The citizen living between the two heaps came out to the fence holding his nose, and the officer asked, "How long have these nuisances existed?" "Oh, about a month," was the reply. And you haven't lodged a complaint at the City Hall P" "No." "Why this horrible stench must float right into your house." "Yes, so it does; but I wasn't fixed to say anything. The man over here lends me his lawn-mower twice a week, and my wife borrows most of our tea and coffee of the other one. I kinder figured on it, and concluded not to raise a row unless the mower got too dull or the brand of coffee run down." FREEDOM OF LAND. We give the following extracts from Mr. G. Shaw Lefevre's valuable book "Freedom of Land": The modern Domesday Book, as the Parliamentary Return, giving the list and acreage of the landowners of the United Kingdom, has been happily termed, enabled the country for the first time since the Domesday of the Conqueror, to form an estimate of the ownership and distribution of its landed property. Compared indeed with the original, it is verv de ficient in details. It is is so framed as to give very little local information as to the ownership of land in particular parishes or distriets, or the number of tenants of the various owners, or as to the nature of the ownerships. It does not distinguish between leaseholders, copy holders, and own rs in fee; it omits all reference to the owners of land let on long lease; it does not distinguish what is mere house property from landed property; it does not enable us to estimate how many members still exist of the class formerly so numous, the yeoman of England, cultivating their own lands, or how maay ean be considered as forming a class of peas in proprietors; it is admittedly inaccurate in many of its details. These inaccuracies, however, do not, it is believed, disturb the general results; and faulty though it may be in many respects, it is still most valuable; it enables us to compare the numbers of landowners of different classes in the three kingdons with the nuruber of owners in other countries. At first sight inde d the aggregate is apt to misled. It appears to indicate a much larger number of proprietors than was appo-ed to ex st. A gross total of 1,153,816 landowners is given for the United Kingdom: of these, however, no lessthan 952,139 are entered as owners or lessees of less than one acre of land, with an aggregate of 183,000 acres only, valued at £35,300,000 per annum. It is obvious that with rare exceptions these must be owners, and most of them leaseholders, of mere house properties. From the 301,378 entries of owners of above one acre, further reductions must be made in respect of duplicate entries, holders of glebes, corporations, aad chari ies. A careful examination of the return has shown that, after making these deductions, there are certainly not more than 166,000 owners of land, as distinguished from honses, in England and Wales; 21,000 in Ireland; 8,000 in Scotland. It may be safely stated then that the number of landowners of the United Kingdom is under 200,000. How then is the land divided among these owners? In Ireland the proportion of landowners would have been about the same as in Scotland, but for recent legi lation promoting the purchase of land by tenants, which has added about 5,000 to the number of small owners, or nearly 30 per cent, of the previous number; with this addition, ona person in 257 owns land, and one in 120 owns a house. In England and Wales the number of owners of land is proportionally larger than in the other countries. There are parts of the country, such as Cumberland and Westmoreland, where the class of yeomen his not altogether died out. There are considerable numbers of owners of small properties in the neighbourhood of towns, which would be more properly classed as owners of villas. In Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire there are a certain number of owners of small ho'dings. With these exceptions there cannot be said to exist a class of ye men farmers or of peasant proprietors. One person out of 130 is probably an owner of lard, and, o nitring London, one person in twenty-six is probably the owner of a house. In a chapter on "Landowners in Other States," Mr. Lefevre gives the following tables :FRANCE. OWNERS. Total Acres. 5,000,000 owners averaging 3 hectares (7 acres) 37,000,000 500,000 medium sized owners averaging 30 hectares (75 acres) 50,000 large proprietors averaging 300 hectares (750 acres) 5,550,000 37,000,000 37,000,000 111,000,000 State domains and Communal property............ 10,600,000 anl 43,800,000 151,000 occupiers of over 40 hectares (100 acres) 27,142,000 A c reful analysis has shown that 955 persons own between them 29,713,000 acres out of the 72,00,000 acres account, d for, exclusive of manors, woods, forests, property let ou long lease, property within the metropolis, and house property generally; giving an average to each of nearly 30,000 acres, Consisting of estates situate generally in two or more counties. A further analysis has shown that about 4,000 persons, in the next raak of landowners, own between them about 20,000,000 acres, with an average of 5,000 acres each; that 10,000 persons own between 500 and 2,000 acres, with an aggregate of 10,000,000 acres; that 50,000 persous own between 50 and 500 acres with an aggregate of 9,000,000 acres; and that 130,000 own between one acre and fi ty acres with an aggregte of 1,760,000 acres. These figures, however, rather understate than overstate the proportion of land held by large owners as compared with smail owners. An addition should te made to the acreage of the former, in respect of woods and miners which are not accounted for in the return, and which probably amount to nearly 4,000,000 acres. Making an addition on this account, it may be safely said that 15,000 persons own between them 64,000,000 acres cut of a total 76 ious; of the remainder about 1,500,000 acres are held in rtinaio, by the Crown, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and other Church Corpora ios, the Universities, Public Schools, Hospitals, and Charities. It will be seen, ho vever, from the above figures, that the distribution of land is very different in the three countries. In Scotland more than half the country consists of mountain and oor, of little agricultural value, and held in immense blocks. The remaining half is owned by a very small number of per Including about 5,000 holdings bought by their tenants der the Bright clauses of the Church Discstablishment Act (139) and the Irish Land Act (1870). UNITED KINGDOM. OWNERS. 180,000 small owners averaging 50,000 medium sized owners with an average of 180 acres Crown lands and lands in mortmain Crown, and "cearls," a very numerous class, tilling the land they owned, and answering to the modern c'ass of yeomen, "the root," as IIllam says, "of a noble plant, the freesoccage tenants, or English veomanry, whose independenc stamped with peculiar features both our constitution and our national character." These two classes owned the cultivated land; beyond were the common lands and forests, then called "folk land," the land of the people, the property of which was vested in the village community, and where the villagers had the right to turn out their cattle, dig their turf, or cut firewoud. The property laws of these people were not different There was from those now prevailing among our colonists. equal division of land upon death among the children; the power of alienation and of willing was faily conceded; there was a public register of all deeds affecting land; alienation was simple and public. These distinctive features of the AngloSaxon land laws were swept away after the Conquest. their place was introduced the featal system of land tenure, with its web on relations between the sovereign, the nobles, the knights, the villeins, and the serfs. The greater part of the land of England was confiscated after the ba tle of Hastings and was granted out by the Conqueror to his military chiefs. These chiefs or lords again, on their part, granted portions of the lordships thus confided to them to their principal knights and retainers below them, to be held on the condition of military service. In Some of the Saxon landowners survived this process of confiscation, and were brought under the system as free tenants o feudal superiors subject only to military service. Much greater nu.abers were relegated to the pos tion of villeins in the feadal system, a position under which they continued to caltivate their lands for their own use, but subject to dues and services, mostly of a personal or agricultural character, to their lords, and were considered to have no rights as against such superiors. B-low these was a class of seris, or slaves without any rights of property, the mere menial servan's of their lords and masters, The feudal system being of mili ary origin, founded on conquest and maintained against internal det ulties and foreign foes by force, had necessitated the maintenance of military commands, er fiefs, in strong hands; the principle of primogenitare, therefore, by which the fief was inherited by the elirst male de condent was als) a necessity and equally opposed to the system was the power of alienation, without the consent at least of the superior lord. The general state of England, then, shortly after the Con quest, was this. The country was divided into a great Dambero separate lordships or mauors. The lord of each manor cultivated a portion of the land, entitled his demesne, by himself or by his bailiff, partly by the aesistance of the villeins or smail farmers of his manor, who were bound to render him service-some of so many days of labour, and others of so many days of team work-and partly by the labour of serfs or slaves. The common lands or wastes were appropriated in a sense by the lords, but subject to the rights of the freehold and other tenants of the manor to turn ont their cattle or dig their turf there. Other portions of the land within the manor were owned by free tenants, who owed only their military service, or in many cases fixed rents, to their superior lord, and who in every other were independent owners of their holdings. The remaining lands of the manor were held and cultivated by the class of villcins. Many of them had originally been owners of their lands, but by commendation or confiscation they had been completely subjected to the will of their feudal lords, and had lost all rights as against them. In theory and often in practice they were completely at the m rev of their lords "faill ble et corceable sans merci ai misericorde" (subject to dues and burthens without mercy or pity), as the old lawyers describe them; they were, however, rarely or never disturbed in the Occupation of their lands. They were allowed to lienate them with the consent of their lords, and to bequeath them to their children; and for a time at least the old Saxon principle of equal division among such children on death of the owner without a will was preserved. In those days the number of retainers a lord could muster was a source of power and a reugth to him. He had no object then in dispossessing the enauts of his manor, neither did he undertake for them any of the duties which pertain to the modern landlord, of building, houses for his tenants or improving their land; when, therefere, the country became more set led and the lawyers began to study the Roman law, they drew principles from it which recognised the right of such tenan's to what we shonid now call fixity of tenure, a right to continue in possession of their holdings upon payment of the customary dnes, services, rents, or fines, and no longer to be merely tenants at the will of their lord. Certain it is that between the time of the Conqueror and of Elward the Third these villeins acquired a clear and absolute right to their holdings, and as tenants on the Roll of the Manor, or copyholders, have ever since been recognised as having an interest scarcely inferior to that of freeholders. And it is this body of small owners who constituted a large proportion of the small proprietors, who at one time were the boast of this country. Domesday Book, the most valuable record of the state of landownership and of the relation of various classes of a population which any country has ever possessed, in orms us that about twenty years after the Conquest the number of lords of manors holding directly from the Crown, or indirectly from some superior lord, was 9,271; that the number of free holders holding under these lords of manors by military service was 13,700; and that the number of freemen holding from lords of manors by fixed or determined rent service was 30,531 rtotal of 53,802 freeholders. The number of villeins, as tinguished from burgesses and serfs, and who were therefore ccapiers of land in rural districts, is stated to have been 101,407. The four northern counties and Wales, comprising one-fifth of the country, were not included in Domesley. Adding one-fifth then to the number, there must at this time have been not short o' 200,000 heads of families interested in the soil either as treeholders or villeius. The relation of landlord and tenant, such as we now know it, did not exie. There is little trace of land having been let on lease to farste befere the reign of Edward I. The principle of primozaite did not in these early times apply to any property but fis, of lands held under fiefs by military service; it di not ably to that freehold property known as freesocraze lant, which had escaped confiscation at the Conquest, nor did it apply to the property of villeius. It is clear, then, that between the date of Domesday and the time of Edward III. there must have been a great increase in the number of persons who haist absolute right in the soil of their native country. Certw's it is that Sir John Fortescue, writing in the time of Henry VI, about a hundred years later, speaks of the number of its fre holders being one of the chief boasts of England of his tag, He adds, that although there were some noblemen of grest estates, yet that between these estates there were great num of small freeholders. The number of parish churches, fie entries in old registries, and many other in ligations, paint ta the fact of England being, before the Black Death, very thickly populated in its rural districts. And Professor Rogers, who has investigated many oll records and manorial lists of the fourte nth century, has found that the land was greatly subdivided, and that most of the regular farm servants of that time were owners of land. It would be interesting to trace, through succeeding periods, the gradual reduction of this clement of English life, Stricte are at no period to be obtained, so that anything like a accurate tracing of the decline is impossible. It is worthy of notice, however, that, unlike most other countries in Europe, where the principle of primogeniture was confined to feudal fiefs and lordships of manors or to the property of the nobility, and was not applied to the property of inferior classes, in England this principle came to be applied to every species of landed property and to all classes of las owners, however small. It was probably extended to copyhold property about the time of Henry III. THE HISTORY OF ENTAIL. It is howewer to the principle of entail that we must main ascribe the reduction and disappearance of small owarts, This principle was by no means one of the arliest features of feudalism. Fiefs and Lordships of manors being in the first instance connected with military duties, even hereditary principle was not at first recognised, and was for a time resisted by the feudal superiors; but when fully recaz nised every effort was made to secure the perpetuation of thes functious and properties in the male line of the family. The Norman barons endeavoured to introduce this princip shortly after the Conquest, but they met with great resistance from the Crown and the Church. |