small farms. The hilly and mountainous nature of the northern
section naturally led to small holdings of land. But in southern Jersey
the level sandy tracts of forest were often taken up in large areas.
In the absence of manufacturing, large acreage naturally became, as in
Virginia and Maryland, the only mark of wealth and social distinction.
The great landlord was looked up to by the lesser fry. The Quaker rule
of discountenancing marrying out of meeting tended to keep a large
acreage in the family and to make it larger by marriage. A Quaker
of broad acres would seek for his daughter a young man of another
landholding Quaker family and would thus join the two estates.

There was a marked difference between East Jersey and West Jersey
in county organization. In West Jersey the people tended to become
planters; their farms and plantations somewhat like those of the far
South; and the political unit of government was the county. In East
Jersey the town was the starting point and the county marked the
boundaries of a collection of towns. This curious difference, the result
of soil, climate, and methods of life, shows itself in other States
wherever South and North meet. Illinois is an example, where the
southern part of the State is governed by the county system, and the
northern part by the town system.

The lumberman, too, in clearing off the primeval forest and selling the
timber, usually dealt in immense acreage. Some families, it is said, can
be traced steadily proceeding southward as they stripped off the forest,
and started sawmills and gristmills on the little streams that trickled
from the swamps, and like beavers making with their dams those pretty
ponds which modern lovers of the picturesque are now so eager to find. A
good deal of the lumbering in the interior pines tract was carried on
by persons who leased the premises from owners who lived on plantations
along the Delaware or its tributary streams. These operations began soon
after 1700. Wood roads were cut into the Pines, sawmills were started,
and constant use turned some of these wood roads into the highways of
modern times.

There was a speculative tinge in the operations of this landed
aristocracy. Like the old tobacco raising aristocracy of Virginia and
Maryland, they were inclined to go from tract to tract, skinning what
they could from a piece of deforested land and then seeking another
virgin tract. The roughest methods were used; wooden plows, b