LANDLORDS A NATUEAL GROWTH 143 



among themselves and usufructuary rights over the de- 

 mesne. Thus, though the soil was divided into a number 

 of individual properties, freehold ownership was practically 

 unknown. The objects and results of Prussian agrarian 

 legislation were to emancipate the peasant from serf- 

 dom, release him from the manorial land, and abolish his 

 personal services, to consolidate intersected estates and 

 extinguish common rights. Landlords received as com- 

 pensation for the release of their serfs a portion of the 

 peasant lands; the peasant retained as freehold a diminished 

 portion of the soil which he had occupied. The Legisla- 

 ture in fact effected a compromise by an interchange of 

 interests. Prussia remains to this day an example of that 

 union of small, middle-sized, and large properties which is 

 economically and socially the most advantageous organisa- 

 tion. 



As with Prussia, so with other states in Germany. 

 Between 1817 and 1848, in Baden, Wiirttemberg, Bavaria, 

 and Hesse, the serfdom of the peasants was abolished by 

 redemption of feudal services ; common rights were extin- 

 guished, or so regulated as no longer to retard agricultural 

 progress ; absolute individual ownership was substituted 

 for common occupation by members of agrarian commu- 

 nities ; landlords emerged from the transaction with an 

 increased private estate, and peasants with a diminished 

 but freehold property. 



The same legislation has produced with some varieties 

 the same results both in Austria and in Russia, Nor was 

 the legislation which is in Denmark associated with the 

 name of Hansen and ' the peasant's friends ' of a more 

 revolutionary character. Landlords abandoned their fiscal 

 immunities and feudal rights, but retained their land. 

 Each estate is now divided into demesne and peasant 



