Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/52

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Recapitulation of the different methods of making lands productive.

I have just enumerated five different methods whereby the Proprietors have been able to ease themselves of the labour of cultivation and make their estates productive by the hands of others.

The first, by workmen paid fixed wages.

The second, by slaves.

The third, by giving up the estate on condition of the payment of a rent.

The fourth, by giving up to the Cultivator a fixed portion of the produce, usually a half, the Proprietor undertaking to make the advances of cultivation.

The fifth, by letting the land to Farmers, who undertake to make all the advances of the cultivation, and who promise to give the Proprietor, during the number of years agreed upon, an unvarying revenue.

Of these five methods the first being too expensive is very rarely employed; the second can find a place only in countries still ignorant and barbarous; the third is less a way of getting what one can out of a property than a surrender of the property in consideration of a lien upon the estate, so that the former Proprietor is no longer anything, to speak properly, but a creditor of the new proprietor.

The two last methods of cultivation are those most generally used, to wit: cultivation by Métayers in poor countries, and cultivation by Farmers in the richer countries.