In early times, when population was scanty, there was a lack of husbandmen. King Alfred, in his Saxon translation of Boethius, into which he often puts observations of his own, expresses in one of the most often quoted of these interpolations what doubtless his own experience had shown him, viz., that 'a king must have his tools to reign with--his realm must be well peopled--full manned.' Unless there are priests, soldiers, and workmen--'_gebedmen_, _fyrdmen_, and _weorcmen_'--no king, he says, can show his craft.[165] We are to take it, then, that population was still scanty, that a thane's manor was not always as well stocked with husbandmen as the necessities of agriculture required. The nation must be fed as well as defended, and both these economic needs were imperative. How, then, was a thane to plant new settlers on his 'gesettes-land'? «_Settene stuht_, or outfit of _geburs_.» We have seen the Kelso monks furnishing their tenants with their outfit or '_stuht_'--the two oxen needful to till the husbandland of two bovates; also a horse, and enough of oats, barley, and wheat for seed. The '_Rectitudines_' shows that in the tenth century this custom had long been followed by Saxon landlords. It further shows that the new tenants so created were settled on _yard-lands_, and called _geburs_. «Two oxen to yard-land.» It states that in some places it is the custom that in settling the _gebur_ on the land, there shall be given to him 'to _land setene_' (_i.e._ as 'stuht' or outfit) two oxen, one cow, six sheep, and seven acres sown on his _yard-land_ or virgate. Then after the first year [p139] he performs the usual services. Having been supplied by his lord, not only with his stuht, but also even with tools for his work and utensils for his house, it is not surprising that on his death everything reverted to his lord. The gebur here answers exactly to the villanus of post-Domesday times.[166] His normal holding is the _yard-land_ or virgate. His _stuht_, which goes with the yard-land 'to setene,' or for outfit, is two oxen, one cow, &c.; _i.e._ one ox for each of the two bovates which made up the yard-land. That this was the usual outfit of the yard-land, and that the yard-land at the same time was the one-fourth part of the _sulung_ or full plough-land, in still earlier times than the date of the '_Rectitudines_,' receives clear confirmation from an Anglo-Saxon will dated A.D. 835, in which there is a gift of '_an half swulung_,' and 'to ðem londe iiii oxan & ii cy & 1 scepa,' &c.[167] The _half-sulung_ being the double of the yard-land, it is natural that the allowance for outfit in [p140] the bequest of oxen and cows should be just double the outfit assigned by custom to the yard-land. It is obvious that the allotment to the whole _sulung_ would be a full team of eight oxen. «Services.» The gebur, then, having been 'set' upon his yard land by his lord, and supplied with his _setene_ or 'stuht,' had to perform his services.