26 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



landowner — the overlord — and all others occupied upon 

 the land worked for him ; they looked to him for pro- 

 tection and gave their services to him in return. The 

 times were unsettled ; landowners spent most of their 

 time in fighting, rather than in the development of their 

 land which they held direct from the Crown. They 

 were obliged to give their services to the King when 

 called upon to do so. 



As time went on, and population increased, the individual 

 farmer began to develop. Doubtless capacity counted 

 then as it does now, and the capable man would have 

 the larger area of land and employ men to work for 

 him. 



Before 1400 the farmer did not pay rental (as we 

 understand the term) to the landowner ; he gave the 

 latter one half of the annual produce from his farm. This 

 is the Metayer system, which rules to this day in Italy 

 and parts of France. But in practice this system does 

 not work well ; it entails much work for the landowner's 

 agent who has to see to the handling and selling of great 

 quantities of produce, and who also has to exercise strict 

 supervision to see that the farmer does not sell produce 

 before the division has been made. 



From 1400 on, it became increasingly the custom for 

 the landowner to require his tenants to pay rent in cash. 

 Although the system of landlord and tenant gradually 

 grew up in Great Britain, there was also a steady growth 

 of the occupying owner — the sturdy yeoman who was 

 such a valuable factor in the rural community. At the 

 end of the seventeenth century there were 160,000 

 occupying owners, constituting well over 50 per cent of 

 the total occupiers of land. 



From that date began the decline in occupying owner- 

 ship ; merchants becoming rich liked to buy land in the 



