Now, turning from England to the Continent, we have in the same way various forms of the open-field system to deal with, and in comparing them with the English system their geographical distribution becomes very important. «German authorities on the German system.» Happily, very close attention has recently been given to this subject by German students, and we are [p371] able to rely with confidence on the facts collected by Dr. Landau,[554] by Dr. Hanssen,[555] and lastly by Dr. August Meitzen in his _Ausbreitung der Deutschen in Deutschland_,[556] and in his still more recent and interesting review of the collected works of Dr. Hanssen.[557] Whilst we learn from these writers that much remains to be done before the last word can be said upon so intricate a subject, some general points seem at least to be clearly made out. In the first place there are some German systems of husbandry which may well be weeded out at once from the rest as not analogous to the Anglo-Saxon three-field system in England. «The Feldgraswirthschaft.» There is the old '_Feldgraswirthschaft_,' analogous perhaps to the Welsh co-ploughing of the waste and the shifting '_Arva_' of the Germans of Tacitus, which still lingers in the mountain districts of Germany and Switzerland, where corn is a secondary crop to grass.[558] «The Einzelhöfe.» There are the '_Einzelhöfe_' of Westphalia and other districts, _i.e._ single farms, each consisting mainly of land all in one block, like a modern English farm, but as different as possible from the old English open-field system, with its yard-lands and scattered strips.[559] «Forest and marsh system.» Further, there is a peculiar form of the open-field system, chiefly found in forest and marsh districts, in which each holding consists generally of _one single [p372] long strip of land_, reaching from the homestead right across the village territory to its boundary.[560] This system, so different from the prevalent Anglo-Saxon system, is supposed to represent comparatively modern colonisation and reclamation of forest and marsh land; and though possibly bearing some analogy to the English _fen_ system, is not that for which we are seeking. Passing all these by, we come to a peculiar method of husbandry which covers a large tract of country, and which is adopted under both the single farm system and also the open-field system with scattered ownership, but which nevertheless is opposed to the three-field system. It is especially important for our purpose because of its geographical position. «The one-field system»