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TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 99 
lord has paid him their full value as ascertained by two public valuers appointed by the 
camara or municipality of the district. The value thus assessed far exceeds in most 
cases the real or marketable value (such as the easeiro would obtain if he should sell 
them, as he is authorized to do, to another person), and it is only in very extraordi- 
nary cases that the landlord becomes the purchaser. The effect of this regulation is 
to give the caseiro very nearly a perfect fixity of tenure. 
The other relations of the landlord and tenant are regulated entirely by the law, or 
rather the custom of the country, and rarely, if ever, by special contract ; a lease is 
absolutely unknown, at least as far as concerns the occupation of land; the lord takes 
one-half of the wine when it issues from the wine-press, one-half of the cora when 
trodden out from the straw on the threshing-floor, as well as one-half of the straw itself, 
one-half of the sugar-cane, fruits, garden and other produce, one-half of the grass or of 
the very various produce which is sold as grass, which is not consumed on the premises. 
lt should be remarked, however, that*before this division is made, the tithe of all the 
produce is claimed by the officers of the Government. The more liberal landlords 
give the seed, and do not claim the smaller articles of produce; but those who are 
very needy or have leased their claims to a rendeiro or middle-man, as is very com- 
monly the case, exact their rights with great and oppressive severity. 
The produce of cattle, pigs, and poultry which are fed on the farm belong entirely to 
the caseiro. Sometimes the landlords furnish the cattle, &c. at a price agreed upon, and 
divide the profit upon them when sold, equally, or in some proportion agreed upon with 
the tenant; it is not unusual, also, to agree upona money price of the corn and other 
produce, before it is gathered, leaving the risks to the tenant: this is very rarely done 
in the case of wine. The consequences of these arrangements, where a kind and con- 
fidential feeling does not exist (as is very rarely the case) between the landlord and 
the tenant, are such as might be anticipated: frauds become rather the rule than the 
exception, The ears of corn and other articles are abstracted and concealed or sold. 
If the factor who watches the interests of the landlord or the middle-man is too vigi- 
lant he is threatened, and in some cases murdered. If a landlord resides upon his 
estate in the country and exercises too close an inspection of the productions of his 
tenants, he is subjected to annoyances and losses, which render his residence amongst 
them uncomfortable at least, if not dangerous. The occupations of the tenants are 
generally extremely small. In the richer and more productive districts, they rarely 
reach an acre of ground ; much more frequently not one-half or even one-tenth of that 
quantity. There is, in fact, hardly any limit to the extent of these sub-divisions. If 
a caseiro dies, his children succeed to the inheritance in common, and either divide 
it, building cottages on their occupations, or hold it in common ; for it rarely happens 
that they possess sufficient money to be able to buy up the portions of the bem/feitorias 
which belong to the other claimants, 
The cultivation is generally of the rudest kind. In large districts we find that wheat 
has been grown on the same land for twenty or thirty years in succession. The crops, 
as may be expected, are extremely poor. I could obtain no answer to my inquiries 
“respecting the average produce per acre: I should think that it rarely reached fourteen 
-bushels—in most cases not half the number. Many of the crops which I examined 
_ in April last, a very favourable season, would hardly, in this country, be considered 
_ worth the trouble of reaping. 
_- On the mountains, at elevations not exceeding 2000 or 2500 feet, the broom and 
furze is burnt once in six or seven years, and the ashes manure the land for a crop 
of rye of the most miserable description. The land is said to be exhausted by the 
effort, and the experiment is not repeated until the end of another septennial period. 
_ In the smaller occupations, we find the mixture of productions which we should 
‘naturally look for in gardens, without the clean and laborious cultivation which is 
essential to its success: wheat or barley, sugar-cane, vines, arrow-root, coffee in 
_ many protected situations, vegetables, peach, fig and orange trees, are intermixed 
“Without order or arrangement ; weeds of all kinds are allowed to grow freely, parti- 
_-cularly under the vines, and are cut from time to time, and used or sold as fodder 
_ for the cattle ; the succession also of many of their productions in a country with a 
alana of perpetual spring or summer is almost independent of the season; but 
"No advantage seems to be taken of this singular felicity of the climate: no selection 
of seeds or plants, no proper pruning, no grafting, no system, no horticultural or. 
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