In regards to the problem of several sons and a finite amount of land, usually the landed gentry in the South tried to solve that problem by passing most of the land to the oldest son and trying to hook the younger sons up with women with no brothers who might expect to inherit from there fathers.
Interesting. Apparently they didn’t follow that tradition in New England. Maybe they were unhappy with the royalty system, primogeniture and the traditions of England in general.
Later in New England, and especially among the Irish, I see in the census the farm was not divided. The oldest son would get it. It’s interesting - among the Irish sons, those lads didn’t marry young. They waited till the father died and then one of them got the farm.