Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/581

 seating in all those cases where the ground engrossed adjoined an old plantation, the owner of which was anxious to extend his boundaries by suing out a patent for the forest lands contiguous to the lands on which he resided. During a long period, the persons who thus pushed forward the boundaries of their estates were not thought to be required to observe the law as to seating in order to secure a valid title to outlying tracts, but in 1692 it was declared that such tracts were to be forfeited unless the holders should in the course of the following three years conform to the established regulation. In order to evade the penalty imposed for a failure to seat lands taken up, it was not unusual for the owner of a plantation, whenever he added to it a body of outlying soil which had never before been appropriates, to have the old and new estates resurveyed, and to sue out a patent for the whole as if the area of both were in their original condition. The previous settlement and cultivation of the older of the two bodies of land served as a fulfilment of the requirement as to seating the more recent. To obtain this new patent, it was necessary to redetermine the boundaries of the old tract. The measurements of the first survey were obtained from the patents granted when title to the land already seated was secured. Adding these measurements to those laid down in the plat of the new tract, the metes and bounds of the two plantations, the old and the new, were taken as the basis for a new patent to both as if they had been one.

The carelessness in conforming to the provisions of the law as to seating was the natural result of the physical conditions prevailing in the Colony. Unappropriated soil was so abundant that no damage seemed to be done to the welfare of the community in obtaining a