cultivation of
the land were due to the fact that land was considered as the means not
of subsistence merely, but of power and protection. In those disorderly
times, every great landlord was a sort of petty prince.

Unfortunately these laws of primogeniture and entail have continued long
after the circumstances which gave rise to them have disappeared.
Unfortunately, because it seldom happens that a great landlord is a
great improver. To improve land with profit requires an exact attention
to small savings and small gains, of which a man born to a great fortune
is seldom capable. And if little improvement was to be expected from the
great proprietors, still less was to be hoped for from those who
occupied the land under them. In the ancient state of Europe, the
occupiers of land were all tenants at will, and practically slaves. To
these succeeded a kind of farmers known at present in France by the name
of "metayers," whose produce was divided equally between the proprietor
and the farmer, after setting aside what was judged necessary for
keeping up the stock, which still belonged to the landlord. To these, in
turn, succeeded, though by very slow degrees, farmers properly so
called, who cultivated the land with their own stock, paying a fixed
rent to the landlord, and enjoying a certain degree of security of
tenure. And every improvement in the position of the actual cultivation
of the soil is attended by a corresponding improvement of the land and
of its cultivation.

After the fall of the Roman empire the inhabitants of cities and towns
were not more favoured than those of the country. The towns were
inhabited chiefly by tradesmen and mechanics, who were in those days of
servile, or nearly servile condition. Yet the townsmen arrived at
liberty and independence much earlier than the country population; their
towns became "free burghs," and were erected into commonalities or
corporations, with the privilege of having magistrates and a town
council of their own, of making by-laws for their own government and of
building walls for their own defence. Order and good government, and the
liberty and security of individuals, were thus established in cities at
a time when the occupiers of land in the country were exposed to every
sort of violence.

The increase and riches of commercial and manufacturing towns
thenceforward contributed to the improvement and cultivation of the
countries to which they belonged, in three differe