The influence of the village community is especially apparent in respect of that portion of the soil which is used for the support of cattle. The management of meadows is very interesting because it presents a close analogy to the treatment of the arable, and at the same time the communal features are much more clearly brought out by it. We may take as an instance a description in the Eynsham Survey. The meadow in Shifford is divided into twelve strips, and these are distributed among the lord and the tenantry, but they are not apportioned to any one for constant ownership. One year the lord takes all the strips marked by uneven numbers, and the next year he moves to those distinguished by even numbers[534]. The tenants divide the rest according to some settled rotation. Very often lots are drawn to indicate the portions of the several households[535]. It must be added that the private right of the single occupiers does not extend over the whole year: as in the case of the arable all inclosures fall after the harvest, so in regard to meadows the separate use, and the boundaries protecting it, are upheld only till the mowing of the grass: after the removal of the hay the soil relapses into the condition of undivided land. The time of the 'defence' extends commonly to 'Lammas day:' hence the expression 'Lammas-meadow' to designate such land. It is hardly necessary to insist on the great resemblance between all these features and the corresponding facts in the arrangement of the arable. The principle of division is supplied by the tendency to assign an equal share to every holding, and the system of scattered strips follows as a necessary consequence of the principle. The existence of the community as a higher organising unit is shewn in the recurrence of common use after the 'defence,' and in the fact that the lord is subjected to the common rotation, although he is allowed a privileged position in regard to it. The connexion in which the whole of these rights arises is made especially clear by the shifting ownership of the strips: private right appears on communal ground, but it is reduced to a _minimum_ as it were, has not settled down to constant occupation, and assumes its definite shape under the influence of the idea of equal apportionment. Of course, by the side of these communal meadows we frequently find others that were owned in severalty. [Allotment of pasture.]