"Even in Germany, communal ownership of land was never a fundamental or generally pervasive social institution; there was something very much like large private estates, worked by dependents and slaves, from the very earliest days of Teutonic Settlement. "As to England, it is highly probable that we shall not find anything that can fairly be called a general communal system of landowning, combined with a substantial equality among the majority of the people, under conditions of settled agriculture. To find it in any sense we shall have to go back to an earlier and 'tribal' condition, if, indeed, we shall find it there!"[3] _No Private Ownership in Pre-Agricultural Conditions_ Whenever and wherever men got their living by hunting and fishing, there was no inducement to own land privately, except possibly those portions upon which they built their huts or houses. "Until they become more or less an agricultural people they are usually hunters or fishermen or both, and possibly also to a limited extent keepers of sheep and cattle. Population is then sparse and unoccupied territory is plentiful, and questions of the ownership of particular tracts of land do not concern them."[4] In any region occupied by a group or tribe, all portions of the land and the water were about equally productive of game and fish; the amount obtainable by any individual had no relation to labour on any particular piece of soil; and it was much easier for each to range over the whole region in common with his fellows than to mark off a definite section upon which he would not permit others to come, but beyond which he himself would not be permitted to go. In such conditions private ownership of land would have been folly. Tribal or group ownership was, however, in vogue, especially among those groups that were in control of the better grounds or streams. Even this form of proprietorship was comparatively unstable, since the people were to a considerable degree nomadic, and were willing to abandon present possessions whenever there was a prospect of obtaining better ones elsewhere. Among men who got their living by rearing herds, the inducement to hold land in exclusive private control would be somewhat stronger. The better grazing tracts would be coveted by many different persons, especially in the more populous communities. And there would always be the possibility of confusion among the different herds, and contention among their owners. In such circumstances the advantages of exclusive control would sometimes outweigh the benefits of common use and ownership. In the thirteenth chapter of Genesis we are told that, owing to strife between the herdsmen of Abram and Lot, the brothers separated, and agreed to become the exclusive possessors of different territories. Nevertheless, it is probable that tribal ownership was the prevailing form of land tenure so long as people remained mainly in pastoral conditions.