Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/340

314 briefly declared, that every man should enclose his ground with sufficient fences, and in case of a failure to dlo so, should suffer the consequences without legal remedy. This regulation was not adopted without opposition. It was urged that to encourage the owners of swine to dis- pense with keepers, whose services had been required to prevent the hogs from roaming in the cornfields, had the effect of making the latter wild by allowing them to wan- der about without any one to watch them, and further- more, in the absence of a herder, they were exposed to a great number of casualties. In the order of court of 1626, and the statute of 1631-32, there is to be found the beginning of the provision that, substantially in its orig- inal form, has been transmitted to the present age, and which has from its very inception been the cause of innumerable personal and political altercations. The fact that a statute passed in the first part of the seven- teenth century should remain in the local law of Virginia, with practically no modification in its principle, shows how little the agricultural conditions of the community have changed in the course of that extended period. While it was in its essence a regulation that worked for the benefit of the sınall planter, and has continued to operate to his special advantage by throwing open a boundless range for his cattle, it was in the eyes of the large planter to be preferred to a measure requiring the enclosure of all land in each tract, which would have imposed upon him a very heavy burden, as many tracts included several thou-