When a habitant was granted the title deed to a lot, he had to agree to accept a variety of annual charges and restrictions. Rent was the most important of these and could be set in money, produce or labour. Once this rent was set, it could not be altered, neither due to inflation nor time. A habitant was essentially free to develop his land as he wished, with only a few obligations to his seigneur. Likewise, a seigneur did not have many responsibilities towards his habitants. The seigneur was obligated to build a gristmill for his tenants, and they in turn were required to grind their grain there and provide the seigneur with one sack of flour out of every 14. The seigneur also had the right to a specific number of days of forced labour by the habitants and could claim rights over fishing, timber and common pastures. Though the demands of the seigneurs became more significant at the end of French rule, they could never obtain enough resources from the rents and fees imposed on the habitants alone to become truly wealthy, nor leave their tenants in poverty. Habitants were free individuals; seigneurs simply owned a "bundle of specific and limited rights over productive activity within that territory". The seigneur–habitant relationship was one where both parties were owners of the land, who split the attributes of ownership between them. Geographic characteristics Estates in free socage were the most macro-level of land division in New France but, within them, there existed several tenurial subdivisions. Immediately below the level of free socage was that of the villeinage (roture). Throughout New France, several thousand estates in villeinage were developed. Furthermore, these villein tenancies were remarkably uniform in terms of size. Barring extreme cases, it is estimated that around 95% of all villein estates were between in size, though most were likely 120 arpents or less. Estates of less than 40 square arpents were considered to be of little value by villein socagers. To maximize simplicity when surveying, estates in villein socage were almost invariably distributed in rectangular plots following a rowed system, wherein the first row bordered the river, and was the first to be filled, followed by the second behind it and so on. Typically, the proportions of such rectangles coincided with the ratio of 1:10 for width and length, respectively. However, extremes all the way up to 1:100