PROPERTY IN THE ALASKAN SEAL HERD. 87 



a new disposition of its lands in harmony with natural law. This 

 tendency is observable where great proprietors reserve large tracts of 

 land for game preserves, for the purposes of mere pleasure, or hold 

 them under a system of rental unfavorable to agricultural improvement, 

 and not adapted to supply the wants of an increasing population. The 

 recent legislation of Great Britain in respect to Ireland is a notable 

 instance of an assertion by the State of that supreme dominion over its 

 lands which a nation always retains, to the end that they maybe made 

 the more subservient to the purposes for which the earth was destined. 



From what has just been said it is apparent that land, although no 

 individual can actually appropriate more than a very small area to his 

 exclusive use, is nevertheless regarded in the law as susceptible of ex- 

 clusive appropriation. The state permits its citizens to assert title to 

 it to an unlimited extent, and the assertion may be made without even 

 any formal physical act of possession. No fences or inclosures even 

 are necessary. The execution of an instrument in writing is of itself 

 sufficient. The law steps in to aid individual power and enables a 

 private person to hold title to a province as securely as he holds the 

 harvests he reaps from his fields with his own hands. 



And the reason is immediately obvious. It is only by the award of 

 property that the earth will be cultivated. No man will sow that another 

 may reap; but if the law will lend its aid to human power by protect- 

 ing the owner of land in his exclusive enjoyment of it, he can and will 

 draw from it by his art and industry its annual product without im- 

 pairing its capacity for production, and will even increase that capacity. 

 This is the only way in which an increased population can be sup- 

 ported. Social necessity, therefore, requires that land should be deemed 

 susceptible of exclusive appropriation, and all structures affixed to the 

 land become a part of it and are property together with it. 



In respect to such movable things as are the fruits of the land or the 

 products of industry, there is no limit to the assertion of ownership, 

 and the circumstance of actual possession is absolutely immaterial. The 

 fruits of the cultivation of the earth must, of course, be the property of 

 tbe husbandman, else his title to the soil would be unavailing, and, 

 in respect to all other products of industry, the same social necessity 

 protects them as property. But for such protection they would not be 

 produced, except for the personal use of the workman. The various 

 arts may be said to be subsidiary to the better cultivation of the earth, 

 for it is these which enable the cultivators to devote their exclusive 

 attention to it. 



