In the lecture on the Town-meeting I have adopted the views of Sir Henry Maine as to the common holding of the arable land in the ancient German mark, and as to the primitive character of the periodical redistribution of land in the Russian village community.

Out of such a colonization as that here described nothing but a democratic society could very well come, save perhaps in case of a scarcity of arable land.

This was the case with the arable mark of our ancestors.

Alike in Hindu and in Russian village-communities we find the group of habitations, each despotically ruled by a pater-familias; we find the pasture-land owned and enjoyed in common; and we find the arable land divided into separate lots, which are cultivated according to minute regulations established by the community.

This assembly elects the Village Elder, or chief executive officer, the tax-collector, the watchman, and the communal herd-boy; it directs the allotment of the arable land; and in general matters of local legislation its power is as great as that of the New England town-meeting,in some respects perhaps even greater, since the precise extent of its powers has never been determined by legislation, and (according to Mr. Wallace)

The adjacent mountains too, were arable, though bold, and promised, in time, to become a fertile and manageable district.

Adj. agricultural, agrarian, agrestic^. arable, predial^, rural, rustic, country; horticultural.

The veterans of the victorious army of Africa were settled singly on various patches of land in Samnium and Apulia; the remainder was retained as public land, and the pasture stations of the grandees of Rome replaced the gardens and arable fields of the farmers.

An arable estate of 200 -jugera- without orchards was estimated to require two ploughmen and six serfs: a similar estate with two orchards two plough-men and nine serfs; an estate of 240 -jugera- with olive plantations and sheep, three ploughmen, five serfs, and three herdsmen.

An estate in pasture land (-saltus-) had of necessity in every case an area considerably greater than an arable estatethe least allowance was 800 -jugera-

The management was in the hands of slaves, and was on the whole similar to the management of the arable estate, the cattle-master (-magister pecoris-) coming in room of the steward.

Throughout the summer the shepherd-slaves lived for the most part not under a roof, but, often miles remote from human habitations, under sheds and sheepfolds; it was necessary therefore that the strongest men should be selected for this employment, that they should be provided with horses and arms, and that they should be allowed far greater freedom of movement than was granted to the slaves on arable estates.

The rearing of cattle yielded on the whole better results than arable husbandry: in the latter the vineyard gave the best return, next came the vegetable garden and the olive orchard, while meadows and corn-fields yielded least.(14)

For this reason men already began to convert good arable land into pasture even at an economic lossa practice which was prohibited by legislation (we know not when, perhaps about this period) but hardly with success.

Now even the extended field of business was no longer able to contain the increased mass of capital; and an insane legislation laboured simultaneously to compel the investment of senatorial capital by artificial means in Italian estates, and systematically to reduce the value of the arable land of Italy by interference with the prices of grain.

5, 30; Plutarch, Cato, 21); which of course is not meant to imply that it was everywhere advisable to convert arable land into pasture, but is to be understood relatively as signifying that

There were a couple of hundred acres of this river bottom land which was arable.

Compared with the English, the French have a greater proportion of arable land than pasture, and consequently they rear fewer cattle, yet they have a thriving population, and that would hardly be if they were stinted in quality or quantity of food.

There were moments in which Bedient almost believed there was a little garden of his planting in the heart of the lustrous lady; moments, even, when he thought it was extending broader and broader upon an arable surface.

With success, he would enlarge the area of his occupation so as to include arable valleys and low-lands bordering the Alleghany range in the slave-States; and here he would colonize, govern, and educate the blacks he had freed, and maintain their liberty.

There are in Spain two million hectares of uncultivated land, twenty-six millions of unirrigated arable land, and only one million irrigated.

On the general question of pasture vs. arable land, cf.

The centre and E. is hilly, and affords excellent grazing and dairy-farming ground; the western or Willamette Valley is arable, producing cereals, potatoes, tobacco, hops, and fruit.

VERMONT (green mount) (332), an inland New England State, W. of New Hampshire and a little larger in size, includes large tracts of both pastoral and arable land; rears live-stock in great numbers, yields cereals, and produces the best maple sugar in the States, and has large quarries of granite, marble, and slate.

She had borne many a heavy burdenher husband's harsh treatment, and, worse than that, his death; and it was a bitter moment when the widow was compelled top give over to a creditor the usufruct of her last piece of arable land, and her own plow stood useless in front of her house.