112 UNIVERSALITY OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



at the close of the old system this territory had 

 become much reduced in extent, and had become 

 the property of a more or less large group of 

 privileged persons. 



6. Private property (Switzerland). After the 

 Kevomtion, the communities of masuirs and other 

 similar corporations ceased to have any recognized 

 legal existence. Those which still survived in 

 spite of the irregularity of their legal position, 

 owed their existence to their insignificance. The 

 others dispersed themselves, or were dispersed, and 

 the property which had belonged to them was 

 either incorporated with the communal estate, or 

 divided up among the members of the old com- 

 munity. 



In each of these cases the transformation was 

 attended by degeneration, for the archaic adminis- 

 trative organization disappeared. 



We saw in the allmend of Switzerland, this 

 same divergent evolution of public and private pro- 

 perty, part of the common land being transformed 

 into communal property, while the use of the sur- 

 plus ended in some instances in the land becoming 

 ultimately the private property of individuals. 

 This frequently occurred where land was cultivated 

 as orchards. In early times both fruit and fruit- 

 trees belonged, like the land itself, to the community, 

 and in certain parts of the Cantons of Uri and 

 Schwyz this is still the case. By degrees, however, 

 individual rights over fruit-trees planted on the 



