28. Recapitulation of the several methods of making lands
productive.
I have just mentioned five different methods by which
proprietors are enabled to ease themselves of the labour of the
cultivation, and to make their land productive, by the hands of
others.
- 1. By workmen paid at a fixed salary.
- 2. By slaves.
- 3. By ceding their lands for rent.
- 4. By granting to the cultivator a determined portion, which
is commonly half the produce, the proprietor paying the advances
necessary for the cultivation.
- 5. By letting their land to farmers, who undertake to make
all the necessary advances, and who engage to pay to the
proprietors, during the number of years agreed on, a revenue
equal to its value.
Of these five methods, the first is too expensive, and very
seldom practised; the second is only used in countries as yet
ignorant and barbarous; the third is rather a means of procuring
a value for, than abandoning of the property for money, so that
the ancient proprietor is no longer any thing more than a mere
creditor.
The two last methods of cultivation are the most common, that
is, the cultivation by metayers in the poor, and by farmers in
the richer countries.
