If there is a scarcity of pasture, and consequently a conflict of interest among the families, the enjoyment of the common land will be regulated not by raising fences, but by simply limiting the number of sheep and cattle which each family is entitled to put upon the pasturage, as is done in many Russian villages at the present day.

When any one desires to keep more sheep and cattle than the maximum to which he is entitled, he pays to the others a certain compensation.

Thus, we see, in pastoral life the dividing of the common land is unnecessary and inexpedient, and consequently private property in land is not likely to come into existence.
With the introduction of agriculture appears a tendency to divide the land among the families composing the community, for each family living by husbandry requires a definite portion of the soil.

If the land suitable for agricultural purposes be plentiful, each head of a family may be allowed to take possession of as much of it as he requires, as was formerly done in the Cossack stanitsas; if, on the contrary, the area of arable land is small, as is the case in some Bashkir aouls, there will probably be a regular allotment of it among the families.
With the tendency to divide the land into definite portions arises a conflict between the principle of communal and the principle of private property.

Those who obtain definite portions of the soil are in general likely to keep them and transmit them to their descendants.