EVOLUTION AND DEGENERATION OF INSTITUTIONS 113 



allmend came to be recognized. These rights, 

 whether temporary or held for a life-time, eventually 

 became perpetual, and finally this right to the 

 private acquisition of trees led to a right to acquire 

 the land itself. This last transformation was not 

 effected without a struggle and occasionally the 

 land was reclaimed by the community, the pro- 

 prietor of the trees receiving compensation. Now- 

 a-days the possession of trees and land usually go 

 together. Duality of this kind, however, is still to 

 be met with in certain localities. In the Sernfthal 

 (in the Canton of Glaris) a still stranger custom 

 prevails with regard to the maple forests. There, 

 the soil, the trees, and the fallen leaves (the latter 

 being used as litter for cattle) all belong to different 

 persons. 1 With regard to house property there are 

 more intermediary conditions between use and 

 possession. In some villages, the chalets as well 

 as the ground upon which they are built, belong to 

 the whole community ; in other villages, both are 

 part of the collective property. Sometimes private 

 possession is restricted to the house or chalet, the 

 right to the ground upon which it is built lapsing 

 with the existence of the house. In order to limit 

 the number -and durability of these buildings, many 

 restrictions are imposed, such as the prohibition to 

 build houses of stones, or chalets of wood cut from 

 trees not belonging to the builder himself or to the 

 corporation to which he belongs, etc. 



1 Miaskowski, Die schweizerische Allmend, pp. 18 and following. 

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