of producing fermented liquors[196]; still, as far as the amount of land is concerned, the advantage is incontestably on the side of the Anglosaxon; and in this one element of wealth, our ceorl was comparatively richer than the comrade of Romulus or the worshipper of Athene. ----- Footnote 191: We need not enter upon the question whether such a plot of land can be well cultivated (except as a garden), or whether it is desirable that there should be such a class of cultivators. All I assert is, that a man can support his family upon it. Footnote 192: The fertility of England was always celebrated, and under the Romans it exported cereals largely. See Gibbon’s calculation of an export under Julian. Dec. F. cap. xix. Our present average yield of wheat exceeds 30 bushels or 3·75 qrs. Footnote 193: If he had a market for his surplus, he might accumulate wealth. Even if he had not this, he insured a comfortable, though rude subsistence, for his household. The spur to exertion, urging him to acquire luxuries, might be wanting, and the national advancement in refinement thus retarded: but he had a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, and an independent existence in the body of the family and the Mark. Such a state necessarily precedes the more cultivated stages of society. Footnote 194: οἶκον μὲν πρώτιστα, γυναῖκα τε, βοῦν τ’ ἀροτῆρα. Cited in Aristot. Polit. bk. i. cap. 1. The land of a fullborn Spartan may have been somewhat less than the Saxon hide: but let those who think these amounts too small, remember the two jugera (under two acres) which formed the _haeredium_ of a Roman patrician. Footnote 195: Hecataeus says the Arcadians fed upon barley-bread and pork, Ἀρκαδικὸν δὲ δεῖπνον.... Ἑκαταῖος ... μάζας φησὶν εἶναι καὶ ὕεια κρέα. Athen. iv. 148. But the Arcadians, both in blood and manners, probably resembled the Saxons more than any other Greeks did; and what Hecataeus says of them would not apply to the inhabitants of Attica. Footnote 196: After the Persian wars at least, when the Greeks prided themselves on drinking wine, not beer: ἀλλ’ ἄρσενας τοι τῆσδε γῆς οἰκήτορας εὑρήσετ’, οὐ πίνοντας ἐκ κριθῶν μέθυ. Æsch. Supp. 929. ----- CHAPTER V. PERSONAL RANK. THE FREEMAN. THE NOBLE. The second principle laid down in the first chapter of this book, is that of personal rank, which in the Teutonic scheme appears inseparably connected with the possession of land.