378 SOME THOUGHTS ON 



tion of agrarian measure may be of two kinds. First, direct, as 

 when the magnitude of certain pieces of ground being known 

 and admitted, others are measured in accordance with them ; 

 or, second, indirect, as when what tradition preserves, is the 

 relation of square to the units of linear measure, the latter being, 

 for obvious reasons, the more common case. As an instance of 

 it I will take the relation of the acre to the jugerum. Of these 

 seven jugera, which long formed the Roman unit of landed 

 property, we may reasonably suppose that one was devoted to 

 house, offices, and garden. Here it is worth noting that Pliny 

 remarks that hortus originally meant not merely a garden, but 

 what in his time was called a villa, that is, I presume, a country- 

 house with its homestead. Something of the same kind still 

 perhaps exists in the popular Italian use of the word casa. 

 We know, at any rate, that in Dauphiny casau means hortus, 

 and that Casaubon when a young man translated his name 

 into Hortibonus, and was in consequence at a later period 

 charged with plagiary by those who did not know who Horti- 

 bonus was. Admitting this hypothesis, six jugera remain, for 

 what comparatively speaking may be designated by the French 

 phrase, " la grande culture." Now nothing is more marked than 

 the tendency of agrarian measures to form themselves as far as 

 possible (I mean of course ideally) into squares, and to be sub- 

 divided into similar smaller figures. Thus, and perhaps the 

 change was connected with some forgotten system of four-course 

 husbandry, the six jugera may have fallen into four agri as our 

 acre itself has into four roods. If this be the origin of our 

 acre, its area would be to that of the jugerum (no regard being 

 had to the difference of the Roman and English foot) as 3 to 

 2, and therefore the acre should contain 4800 square yards. It 

 does contain 4840, but the reason why it has thus been modi- 

 fied is obvious, in order that the tenth of a rood may be a 

 square with a whole number of yards for its side, or which is 

 the same thing, in order that the side of the square perch, 

 which is the 160th of an acre, may be accurately expressed 

 without any complex fraction. Had the acre remained what 

 on my theory it ought to be, the perch would have been 30 

 square yards; by adding a quarter of a square yard to it, it 

 becomes a square whose side is 5j yards. Thus, setting aside 

 this modification and the difference of units, the jugerum is 



