Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/39

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S11
The Proprietors begin to be able to throw the labour of cultivation upon hired Cultivators.

But since the land returned, to the master who cultivated it, not only his subsistence, not only that wherewith to procure for himself by way of exchange the other things he needed, but also a considerable superfluity, he could, with this superfluity, pay men to cultivate his land; and for men who live on wages, it was as good to earn them in this business as in any other. Thus ownership could be separated from the labour of cultivation; and soon it was.

S12
Inequality in the division of properties: causes which render that inevitable. The original Proprietors at first occupied, as has been already said, as much of the ground as their forces permitted them to cultivate with their family. A man of greater strength, more industrious, more anxious about the future, took more of it than a man of a contrary character. He whose family was more numerous, as he had more needs and more hands at his disposal, extended his possessions further: here was already a first inequality. All pieces of ground are not equally fertile: two men, with the same extent of ground and the same labour, could obtain a very different produce from it:  second source of inequality. Properties, in passing from fathers to children, are divided into portions more or less small, according as the families