Editing Fence (section)

=== History ===
[[File:Concretefence.JPG|thumb|Mass concrete fence in [[Russia]]]]
{{more citations needed section|date=February 2012}}

Servitudes<ref>{{cite dictionary| url= http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/servitude| title= =\Servitude| dictionary= Merriam-Webster| access-date= 2012-06-15| url-status= live| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120524145033/http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/servitude| archive-date= 2012-05-24}}</ref> are legal arrangements of land use arising out of private agreements. Under the [[feudal]] system, most land in England was cultivated in common fields, where [[peasants]] were allocated strips of [[arable land]] that were used to support the needs of the local village or [[manoralism|manor]]. By the sixteenth century the growth of population and prosperity provided incentives for landowners to use their land in more profitable ways, dispossessing the peasantry. Common fields were aggregated and enclosed by large and enterprising farmers—either through negotiation among one another or by lease from the landlord—to maximize the productivity of the available land and contain livestock. Fences redefined the means by which land is used, resulting in the modern law of servitudes.<ref>Jesse Dukeminer et al., Property, pp. 668-70 (6th ed. 2006)</ref>

[[File:Bolivar Heights Battlefield, fence on Bakerton Road.jpg|thumb|[[Buck-and-rail fence|Buck-and-rail fencing]] such as this in West Virginia was ubiquitous in the Eastern Theater of the [[American Civil War]], as it was easily made as long as there was plenty of timber readily available. Soldiers from both sides of the war made use of wood from these fences for their camp fires.]]
[[File:Zagroda z Rożnowic (Rozenberg, 1858).JPG|thumb|A [[Wattle (construction)|wattle]] fence at [[Muzeum Budownictwa Ludowego w Sanoku|Sanok-Skansen]] outdoor museum in [[Poland]]]]

In the United States, the earliest settlers claimed land by simply fencing it in. Later, as the American government formed, unsettled land became technically owned by the government and programs to register land ownership developed, usually making raw land available for low prices or for free, if the owner improved the property, including the construction of fences. However, the remaining vast tracts of unsettled land were often used as a commons, or, in the [[American West]], "[[open range]]" as degradation of [[habitat]] developed due to [[overgrazing]] and a [[tragedy of the commons]] situation arose, common areas began to either be allocated to individual landowners via mechanisms such as the [[Homestead Act]] and [[Desert Land Act]] and fenced in, or, if kept in public hands, leased to individual users for limited purposes, with fences built to separate tracts of public and private land.