aces, or cultivate it
for his garden.

I know of one spot at this present moment which was enclosed by an
agricultural labourer fully sixty years ago. It is an oval piece of
ground of considerable size, situated almost exactly in the centre of a
very valuable estate. He and his descendants continued to crop this
garden of theirs entirely unmolested for the whole of that time, paying
no rent whatever. It soon, however, became necessary to enlarge the size
of the fields, which were small, in order to meet the requirements of
the modern style of agriculture. This oval piece was surrounded by
hedges of enormous growth, and the cultivator was requested to remove to
another piece more out of the way. He refused to do so, and when the
proprietors of the surrounding estate came to inquire into the
circumstances they found that they could do nothing. He had enjoyed
undisturbed possession for sixty years; he had paid no rent--no quit
rent or manor dues of any kind. But still further, when they came to
examine the maps and old documents, no mention whatever appeared of this
particular patch of ground. It was utterly unnoticed; it was not
recorded as any man's property. The labourer therefore retained
possession. This was an extraordinary case, because the encroachment
took place in the middle of a cultivated estate, where one would have
thought the tenants would have seen to it.

Commonly the squatters pitched on a piece of land--a long unused
strip--running parallel to the highway or lane. This was no one's
property; it was the property of the nation, which had no immediate
representative to look after its interests. The surrounding farmers did
not care to interfere; it was no business of theirs. The highway board,
unless the instance was very glaring, and some actual obstruction of the
road was caused, winked at the trespass. Most of them were farmers, and
did not wish to interfere with a poor man, who they knew had no other
way of getting a house of his own. By-and-by, when the cottage was
built, the labourer was summoned to the court-leet of the manor, and was
assessed in quit rent, a mere nominal sum, perhaps fourpence or a
shilling a year. He had no objection to this, because it gave him a
title. As long as the quit rent was duly paid, and he could produce the
receipt, he was safe in the occupation of his cottage, and no one could
turn him out. To be assessed by the court-leet in fact established his
title. Some of these c