SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTEES. 



XTbe IRoman ©ccupation. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE PREHISTORIC ERA. 



PAGE 



Allusions by Greek and Eoman authors to the Tin Islands— The 

 condition of their husbandry — The homes of the aborigines — 

 Their habits, food, and religion — Their marketable products — 

 Knowledge of agriculture as compared with that of other 

 nations 7 



CHAPTER II. 



THE BIRTH OF THE ENGLISH LAND SYSTEM. 



Ethnical characteristics of the three nationalities who helped to 

 form the English Landed Interest — Tribal peoples and a com- 

 munal form of Land Tenure —Tendency of all races to fit them- 

 selves to the circumstances of their environment — The economy 

 of the primitive Roman — History of the Ager Publicus — The 

 Roman polity with regard to conquered lands — That nation's 

 fiscal arrangements in Britain — The evidence of coins in favour 

 of the Scriptura system — Similarities in the Roman and English 

 landed economies — The intimacy between the Romans and 

 British — Possibility of the origin of over-lordship in Britain 

 emanating from Roman sources — Caution to be observed in 

 dogmatizing about the parallels discovered between Roman and 

 English landed economies 23 



CHAPTER IIL 



THE SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE. 



Comparison of the system at its beginning and end — The climate 

 then and now — The native material upon which the Roman 

 husbandman had to work — His difficulties in adapting his own 

 methods of farming to the circumstances of a northern climate 

 and soil — The native temperament an obstacle to his progress — 

 Roman engineering skill a helpful accessory — The advanced con- 

 dition of the conquerors' agriculture as illustrated by the writ- 

 ings of Virgil and Pliny — Characteristics of all early agricul- 

 tural authors, piety and scepticism — The Roman works on 

 husbandry anal^^sed 34 



