It was a reform supported by the government with the purpose of shifting the land of the village communities, from the solskifte, where every farmer owned several pieces of land split about the village, to a new system, where every farmer owned a connected piece of farmland.
The shift began in 1749 by the initiative of Jacob Faggot, and in 1757 a regulation was issued to given the reform a set organization.
According to the old rules, solskifte, the farmers of a village all had equal share in the land owned by the village collectively, and the land belonging to their farm were split around the area.
This made the land belonging to each farm hard to access and work, as it was spread with long distances, but it also secured a greater social justice, as everyone had both bad and good land in their possession.
The result of the reform was that each farm possessed fewer but larger land parcels.