Every seignory now existing must have been created before the Statute of Quia Emptores (1290), which forbade the future creation of estates in fee-simple by subinfeudation.
But in the " Great Division " which took place in 1848 and forms the foundation of present land titles, about 984,000 acres, nearly onefourth of the inhabited area, were set apart for the crown, about r, 495, 000 acres for the government, and about 1,619,000 acres for the several chiefs; and the common people received fee-simple titles 4 for their house lots and the pieces of land which they cultivated for themselves, about 28,600 acres, almost entirely in isolated patches of irregular shape hemmed in by the holdings of the crown, the government or the great chiefs.
The annual government demand, like the succession duty in England, is universally the first liability on the land; when that is satisfied, the registered landholder has powers of sale or mortgage scarcely more restricted than those of a tenant in fee-simple.
Mdbius estimates that for every oyster brought to 1 Connecticut has greatly benefited its oyster industry by giving to oyster-culturists a fee simple title to the lands under control by them.
They also demanded permission to occupy the vast plains of the interior, without having to obtain by purchase or by grant the fee-simple of the lands upon which their sheep and cattle grazed.
