66 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



After the survey was made and the patent issued, the patentee 

 was still required to build a house and settle on the land before 

 the title was complete. 



Land speculation. In the colonial period, especially after the 

 first few years, a considerable volume of land speculation grew 

 up. This usually took the form of securing a grant for a con- 

 siderable tract and then organizing or otherwise inducing a 

 group of colonists to settle upon it. After a part of the tract 

 had been settled the remainder would command a higher price 

 from later settlers, and thus would yield a profit to the pro- 

 moters. This method, so familiar even in our own day in the 

 Far West, began very early in our colonial history and has 

 continued without many variations ever since. 



The land system of New England. There were certain striking 

 differences between the land systems of New England and those 

 of the Southern colonies. In the early days in New England 

 it was not customary to make grants of land directly to indi- 

 vidual settlers, though a few individual grants were made, usu- 

 ally for conspicuous service. The usual method was to make a 

 grant to a group of individuals who wished to found a settle- 

 ment or town. From this group, or from the town which they 

 constituted, the individual member received his grant or allot- 

 ment, which was subject to certain restrictions imposed by the 

 town. Weeden, in his " Social and Economic History of New 

 England," says that " it was the admirable economic land tenure 

 which shaped the early towns ; without this, even their religious 

 and political systems might not have established their distinctive 

 system of living." The earlier towns were practically settled as 

 church communities ; that is to say, the formation of a town 

 amounted practically to the organization of a church congrega- 

 tion and then settling as a congregation upon a tract of land 

 and calling it a town. When a town was settled, all members 

 who were admitted to citizenship were given grants of land. 



