Many German farmers used to have several small fields which were not together but were in different places, some of them maybe two or three miles away from where they lived. This was particularly a problem in the area to the left of the Rhine which had been ruled by Napoleon, because in the 19th century, when a farmer and his wife had died, their land was shared between all their children, so it got divided into smaller pieces. In other parts of Germany only the eldest son inherited the land. 