Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/84

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The lack of Capitalist Undertakers restricts agriculture to the small-farming method.

When, on the contrary, there are no rich men who have large capitals to put into agricultural enterprises; when, owing to the low price of the products of the land or for any other reason, the crops are not enough to ensure to the Undertakers, besides the return of their funds, profits at least equal to those which they would derive from their money if they employed it in an entirely different way; then Farmers are not to be found who will be willing to take the lands on lease. The Proprietors are forced to get them cultivated by "Colons" or Métayers, who are unable to make any advances or to carry on a proper cultivation. The Proprietor himself makes some scanty advances which produce him a very scanty revenue: if the land belongs to a Proprietor who is poor or in debt or neglectful, or to a Widow, or to a Minor, it stays out of cultivation. Such is the true principle of the difference I have already noticed between the Provinces where the land is cultivated by rich Farmers, as in Normandy and the Isle of France, and those where it is cultivated only by poor Métayers, like the Limousin, the Angoumois, the Bourbonnais, and several others.