LEASING. 



hension of evil, that leasing is injurious to the 

 morals of the poor, affording them an opportunity 

 and initiating them in petty pilfering : but, if the 

 disposition existed, it could be practicable but in 

 very few instances ; mutual jealousy would prevent 

 individual success, and immediate detection would 

 follow the filching of numbers. The commence- 

 ment of many ceremonies and solemnities are lost by 

 perversion, or in the obscurity of years ; the stream 

 of habit may trickle on from age to age, till it 

 flows in time a steady current, yet the original 

 source remain unknown : but this custom of glean- 

 ing the remnant of the field we know existed from 

 the earliest periods, three thousand years and up^ 

 wards for certain; for, if it were not then first 

 instituted, it was secured and regulated by an 

 especial ordinance of the Almighty to the Israelites 

 in the wilderness, as a privilege to be fully enjoyed 

 by the poor of the land, whenever their triumphant 

 armies should enter into possession of Canaan. By 

 this law, the leasing of three products was granted 

 to the destitute inhabitants of the soil, the olive, 

 the grape vine, and corn ; the olive tree was to be 

 beaten but once ; the scattered grape in the vintage 

 was not to be gathered ; and in the field where the 

 corn grew, " clean riddance" was not to be made, 

 the corners were to be left unreaped, and even the 

 forgotten sheaf was not to be fetched away by the 

 owner, but to be left for the < poor and the 



