1 6 Rents t Wages, and Profits in Agriculture 



this plan the landlord let not only the 

 land, but the stock and capital of all 

 kinds necessary to work the land. In this 

 way the serf became a tenant farmer, with 

 this difference, that he did not provide the 

 capital. The system was thus very like 

 the metayer system that still prevails over 

 large areas of Europe, and still more like 

 the "share" system of the United States. 



It differed from the metayer system in 

 that the rent was not a customary part 

 of the produce, but a money payment 

 which might be varied on the lapse of a 

 lease. In the course of time the more 

 industrious and enterprising of these new 

 tenants were able to buy the stock from 

 the landowners, and in many cases they 

 also bought the land subject to certain 

 payments, which represented the old 

 burdens and the old feudal obligations. 

 But as we are only concerned with the 



