Such was one line of descent. The Virginians, like most of their contemporaries, knew little and cared less for political science. They simply turned to their English experience, pieced together some old-country institutions and adapted them to the new world. Their experiment succeeded for the time being at least. It could scarcely have failed under such simple conditions. Of quite a different sort were the influences at work in New England. A severe climate, a rocky soil and menacing Indians drove the colonists into compact communities, where they could live by shipping and fishing. They too were fortunate in striking an environment that rather exactly fitted their old-country experience. For they were a homogeneous, single-minded body of people with firm traditions of democracy and a common religious faith. From the congregational form of organization that was characteristic of the Puritan movement to the town meeting for purposes of civil government, was a single easy step. Thus the “town” idea came to hold the center of the stage in New England local affairs. But it never had the all-sufficiency in its sphere which the county had in the South, and even New England had to recognize a need for more comprehensive subdivisions. And so, in 1636, Massachusetts was divided into four judicial districts in each of which a quarterly court was held. In 1643 four counties were definitely organized, both as judicial and militia districts, and before the middle of the century there was established a system of representative commissioners from each town, who met at the shire town to equalize assessments. The office of county treasurer was created in 1654. Later a militia officer was appointed, and within a few years county officers were entrusted with the duty of registering land titles, recording deeds and probating wills--functions transferred in part from town officers and in part from the governor and council. So from Virginia and Massachusetts flowed the two streams of institutional influence, the former tending to make the county the exclusive organ of local government, and the other emphasizing the town. Maryland, though it had started out with a somewhat special type of organization borrowed from the County Palatine of Durham, with its manors and hundreds, later came under the sway of Virginian precedents and three counties were established there in 1650. The Carolinas, which were not thoroughly organized until the eighteenth century, followed the Virginia plan in its main outlines. Georgia’s development was not well begun until after the Revolution. Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine all followed the lead of Massachusetts, though the first two of these states minimized the importance of the county to an even greater extent.