MEANS OF ACQUIRING LAND 



there were but 2,412 pieces of land of 160 acres 

 each for distribution. 1 



The presence of unoccupied lands of good 

 quality which has, hitherto, made the task of 

 acquiring landownership an easy one in this coun- 

 try, will be of less and less significance as the 

 years go by, and other considerations will become 

 more and more important. This leads us to study 

 the importance of gift and inheritance as means of 

 acquiring landownership. 



Section II. Gift and Inheritance. A vast 

 amount of wealth passes on from generation to 

 generation by gift and inheritance. Hence it is 

 not necessary, in order to maintain the class of 

 landowning farmers in a country where this class 

 is already established, that each succeeding gen- 

 eration of farmers should save from the profits 

 of their industry sufficient wealth to purchase 

 their farms, and to hand this accumulated wealth 

 over to the preceding generation of landowners. 

 This would be necessary, however, in order to 

 reestablish a class of landowning farmers in one 

 generation in a country where landlordism has be- 

 come universal. In England, where most of the 

 land is owned by a comparatively small number of 

 landlords, the estates are handed down from gen- 

 eration to generation and thus remain the property 

 of the landlord class; and in that country it is 



1 General Land-Office Report, 1904, p. 13. 

 14 209 



