In the eighteenth century rural society in the Scottish lowlands was transformed as traditional agriculture was reformed, peasant holdings consolidated and the majority of the rural population reduced to the status of landless wage labourers.

In Samstagern there are some peasant holdings, especially on the outskirts of the village.

Even in 1939 there could still be found peasant holdings in eastern Europe where the old pattern of division of open fields into scattered strips survived, and it was commoner still in 1880.

Since, in the last stage of the reform's passage, the State Council reduced the maximum size of peasant allotments to a point where many existing peasant holdings exceeded it, the provision for "trimming" came into operation very frequently.

But, whatever their importance in economic terms, the number of middling peasant holdings not only maintained itself, but even increased sometimes.

Both imply a market economy but, whereas even before the triumph of capitalism most large estates operated as productive units exist to sell a large proportion of their output, most peasant holdings, being primarily self-sustaining, do not.

Some members say there is a debate going on within the Congress over whether, if the group succeeds in toppling the Pretoria Government, agricultural development should be dominated by state farms, large-scale commercial enterprises, small peasant holdings or a mix of all three.

He had 655 acres of land settled with indivisible peasant holdings, held under hereditary leases.

"To the old quicksilver mines, to mountain retreats, a few peasant holdings."

Again one can see local variations: in Kent, where there was partible inheritance by the local custom called gavelkind, peasant holdings were subject to constant division and could then be reconsolidated, because the holders of land had a free right to alienate it.