=The Significance of Land Tenure.=--The way in which land may be
acquired, held, divided among heirs, and bought and sold exercises a
deep influence on the life and culture of a people. The feudal and
aristocratic societies of Europe were founded on a system of landlordism
which was characterized by two distinct features. In the first place,
the land was nearly all held in great estates, each owned by a single
proprietor. In the second place, every estate was kept intact under the
law of primogeniture, which at the death of a lord transferred all his
landed property to his eldest son. This prevented the subdivision of
estates and the growth of a large body of small farmers or freeholders
owning their own land. It made a form of tenantry or servitude
inevitable for the mass of those who labored on the land. It also
enabled the landlords to maintain themselves in power as a governing
class and kept the tenants and laborers subject to their economic and
political control. If land tenure was so significant in Europe, it was
equally important in the development of America, where practically all
the first immigrants were forced by circumstances to derive their
livelihood from the soil.

=Experiments in Common Tillage.=--In the New World, with its broad
extent of land awaiting the white man's plow, it was impossible to
introduce in its entirety and over the whole area the system of lords
and tenants that existed across the sea. So it happened that almost
every kind of experiment in land tenure, from communism to feudalism,
was tried. In the early days of the Jamestown colony, the land, though
owned by the London Company, was tilled in common by the settlers. No
man had a separate plot of his own. The motto of the community was:
"Labor and share alike." All were supposed to work in the fields and
receive an equal share of the produce. At Plymouth, the Pilgrims