[Illustration:  SOUTHERN PLANTATION MANSION]

=The Small Freehold.=—­In the upland regions of the South, however, and throughout most of the North, the drift was against all forms of servitude and tenantry and in the direction of the freehold; that is, the small farm owned outright and tilled by the possessor and his family.  This was favored by natural circumstances and the spirit of the immigrants.  For one thing, the abundance of land and the scarcity of labor made it impossible for the companies, the proprietors, or the crown to develop over the whole continent a network of vast estates.  In many sections, particularly in New England, the climate, the stony soil, the hills, and the narrow valleys conspired to keep the farms within a moderate compass.  For another thing, the English, Scotch-Irish, and German peasants, even if they had been tenants in the Old World, did not propose to accept permanent dependency of any kind in the New.  If they could not get freeholds, they would not settle at all; thus they forced proprietors and companies to bid for their enterprise by selling land in small lots.  So it happened that the freehold of modest proportions became the cherished unit of American farmers.  The people who tilled the farms were drawn from every quarter of western Europe; but the freehold system gave a uniform cast to their economic and social life in America.

[Illustration:  From an old print

A NEW ENGLAND FARMHOUSE]

=Social Effects of Land Tenure.=—­Land tenure and the process of western settlement thus developed two distinct types of people engaged in the same pursuit—­agriculture.  They had a common tie in that they both cultivated the soil and possessed the local interest and independence which arise from that occupation.  Their methods and their culture, however, differed widely.

The Southern planter, on his broad acres tilled by slaves, resembled the English landlord on his estates more than he did the colonial farmer who labored with his own hands in the fields and forests.  He sold his rice and tobacco in large amounts directly to English factors, who took his entire crop in exchange for goods and cash.  His fine clothes, silverware, china, and cutlery he bought in English markets.  Loving the ripe old culture of the mother country, he often sent his sons to Oxford or Cambridge for their education.  In short, he depended very largely for his prosperity and his enjoyment of life upon close relations with the Old World.  He did not even need market towns in which to buy native goods, for they were made on his own plantation by his own artisans who were usually gifted slaves.