OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 315 



three fields, usually three. Then one of these fields lay fallow every 

 other year where there were two of them, or once in three years 

 where there were three of them. 



The intermixture of properties which I have just described made 

 it necessary for the proprietors to carry on the processes of agriculture 

 simultaneously, and more or less co-operatively. It was necessary 

 for the proprietors, or their representatives, to meet and agree upon 

 certain courses of action. It was also necessary to appoint officers to 

 represent the meetings, and to see that everybody acted according to 

 agreement. Tliis was the beginning of systematic local self-govern- 

 ment upon democratic principles ; for the most remarkable feature 

 connected with the organization of these local governments was the 

 very general adoption of the pi'inciple of equal suffrage, without re- 

 gard to inequalities of property. Every proprietor had an equal voice 

 in the making of rules and regulations for his village or town, and in 

 appointing officers and magistrates to see that they were observed. 

 Every proprietor had an equal voice in these matters without regard 

 to the extent of his property. He who owned one share of the laud 

 had just as much influence in the town meeting as he who owned five 

 shares or ten. On the one hand we have inequalities of property, 

 and on the other hand equal rights of suffrage, — unequal property 

 rights with equal political rights, — just as it is among ourselves to- 

 day. 



As time went on, some of the proprietors ceased to be proprietors ; 

 but as long as they continued to reside in their town, they attended 

 the town meetings, and exerted an influence in them. The result was, 

 that the rights of proprietors were often curtailed for the accommo- 

 dation and satisfaction of the non-proprietors. The non-proprietors, 

 for example, wanted the right to turn their animals out upon the 

 pasture land of tlie town, which was the property of the proprietors, 

 which was owned by the proprietors in undivided shares ; or else they 

 wanted to have the privilege of turning their animals out upon the 

 stubble of the arable fields after the harvest had been gathered in. 

 In many cases the non-proprietors were so numerous in the town 

 meeting, or their appeals were so forcible, that tliey were able to 

 obtain rights in the land wliich did not properly belong to tliem as 

 non-proprietors. Without being proprietors, they obtained rights 

 amounting to rights of property* In some cases, indeed, they suc- 

 ceeded in having the pasture land of the town, including the forest and 

 waste, defined as the common property of all the townsmen, including 

 the non-proprietors. 



