6 ORIGIN OF COMMONS. 
might be of value for residential purposes, or for adding 
to parks and game preserves, but which is of far greater 
value to the public in its wild and uninclosed state, 
contributing so much to the amenities of the districts, 
and affording unrestricted enjoyment to the public. 
Such Commons are confined to England and Wales ; 
they do not exist in Ireland or Scotland. All the land 
in those countries, even where uncultivated and in- 
capable of agricultural improvement, belongs to in- 
dividual private owners, except so far as the recent Irish 
and Scotch Lands Acts have conceded rights of pastur- 
age over adjoining mountain lands. There are no 
rights of common vested in adjoining owners, such as 
to forbid the inclosure and fencing of the land, and to 
prevent the owners of the soil excluding the public from 
it. Hence it arises that the Scotch landowners have 
been able to turn their moors into deer forests, and to 
prohibit the public from traversing them, or ascending 
the hills in search of the beauties of nature and fresh 
air. The reason is that Ireland and Scotland were 
not subjected to the Saxon and Norman Manorial 
systems, under which Manors, with their Lords and 
free and copyhold tenants, were created. The change 
from collective, tribal, or clan ownership of land to 
individual proprietorship was made without any tran- 
sition, such as occurred in England under the feudal 
system. Had these countries passed through the same 
experience, it is almost certain that the occupiers would, 
at an early period, have been treated as the copyhold 
tenants were in England, and have had conceded to 
