1 20 IRature StuMee In Berksblre- 



first stuck a spade into the ground to till it and dress it, 

 that tool in the dirt was the notice to all creation that 

 he had ''come to stay." He is a *' settler" now. 

 He belongs to a spot ; and he will have the spot be- 

 long to him. The garden and the farm imply houses, 

 homes, settled abodes. The spade that turns the sod 

 for a tilled field digs at the same time the cellar for a 

 permanent dwelling ; and it is to the discovery and 

 the use of the spade that you and I owe our pleasant 

 homes. 



But when we have said this much Vv^e have not 

 begun to tell the story of the wonderful changes and 

 advances which grew as fruit out of seed from this 

 change from the nomad's life to that of the settler, 

 the transition from grazing-fields to cornfields. The 

 permanent abode meant a better house ; and here 

 was the origin of every modern convenience and 

 luxury. For the nineteenth-century dwelling is a 

 slow evolution, an accretion of features, all of which 

 would have been impossible in the tent of a roving 

 shepherd or hunter. With the farm life, too, woman 

 begins to emerge from the position of a chattel and 

 becomes a partner. She begins to divide the labour 

 more evenly with her mate, and to share more equit- 

 ably in its gains. This, too, is the introduction to the 

 land question. The whole problem of the soil, its 

 ownership, its taxation, rent, tithes, titles, and deeds, 

 begins with the settlement of the early man into a 

 farmer. So that the real-estate broker really owes a 

 great deal to that first farmer, Adam, who, though 



