32 AMERICAN FARMS, 



occasional goatherd on the hill-side, or the gathering of 

 the women at the wells." ' The old farms of Palestine 

 have been all abandoned, and the sons of the fathers and 

 founders of so much that we prize wander about in the 

 world, bereft of social or political influence anywhere. 



As to the Grecian Republic, its history teems with 

 accounts of vexatious changes and disturbances on ac- 

 count of land difficulties. Plutarch, in his " Lives," 

 speaks frequently of the disorders of the state, which he 

 attributes to agrarian troubles. Lycurgus, with a power 

 that seems marvellous to us, upsets the whole of the land 

 titles, in order to give back to thousands a share in the soil. 



A few hundred years later and the country is plunged 

 in civil war over these land troubles. Agis and Cleo- 

 menes meet death through an attempt to grapple with 

 these difficulties : — landed property in the hands of " the 

 few," " and the rest of the people poor and miserable." 

 Poor and miserable was evidently the correct descrip- 

 tion of the peasantry of the Grecian Republic as it 

 approached its many social and political crises. 



A hint only seems necessary to remind the intelligent 

 reader that most disastrous misfortunes overtook the 

 rural citizens of the Roman Republic and Empire, before 

 their overthrow. Roman gods and goddesses were un- 

 equal to the task of saving the small landed proprietors 

 from destruction ; for it amounted to that. 



The land-holders must have been very numerous at 

 one time, especially at the period when seven acres con- 

 stituted the limit of the extent of the individual estate. 

 The vast majority of these, with their posterity, not 

 only had their grievous difficulties to contend against, 

 but were finally dispossessed of their properties. " Ex- 



' Dr. Cunningham Geikie. 



