CHAPTER XXVIII. 



ON THE PROFITS OF AGRICULTURE BEFORE AND 

 AFTER THE PLAGUE. 



IT has been stated in the foregoing pages, on several occa- 

 sions, that the effect of the Plague was to introduce a complete 

 revolution in the occupation of land, and that the owners of 

 the soil were constrained to abandon farming on their own 

 account and that after a short period, during which a custom 

 analogous to the metairie of Southern France and Northern 

 Italy prevailed, they established a system of farmers' rents, 

 generally on short leases. Nor has it been difficult to account 

 for the temporary expedient of this quasi-metairie * and the 

 ultimate adoption of a farming system. Well-to-do, as I make 

 no doubt were the numerous freeholders and copyholders of a 

 manor, they were nevertheless small proprietors, whose capital 

 would be quite insufficient to allow the immediate occupa- 

 tion of the large estates which, belonging to the lord of the 

 manor, had been hitherto cultivated by the lord's bailiff, and 

 with the lord's capital. In the interval, then, it was necessary 

 that the tenant should be supplied with capital from his 

 landlord's stock, at a certain rent, and under certain condi- 

 tions, as, for instance, the insurance of the cattle so rented. 

 This arrangement was no novel one, for it had long been the 

 practice to let cows and sheep out to farm before the events 



a It is a remarkable proof of Adam Smith's sagacity, that with no positive information on 

 the subject he should have anticipated (Wealth of Nations, Book III. cap. ii.) that such a 

 form of tenure did prevail in England, though he has naturally erred as to its duration. 



