Profit-Sharing in Agrictdhire. 781 
I 
of all sales to Lady Carlisle, who pays the rent and taxes. 
This one-third of the produce is said to amply cover the rent, 
rates, and interest on the proportion of working capital (two- 
thirds of the whole) advanced by Lady Carlisle. It is claimed 
that by this arrangement the farmer is enabled to sell every- 
thing that is desirable to market, whenever a favourable oppor- 
tunity offers, instead of being obliged to dispose of stock and 
produce when rent-day draws near, whether the markets are 
favourable or not. He has every inducement to economise 
labour, because he has to pay for it out of his own pocket ; he 
has every inducement to raise maximum crops, because the 
larger the yield the greater his share. Lady Carlisle, having 
an interest in every crop and in all stock sold, has every induce- 
ment to encourage her partner. It is easy to see that any 
improvement of a permanent character would result in an 
increase of produce which each partner would share. 
In Northumberland I am farming on the profit-sharing system 
3,765 acres — 1,290 permanent pasture, 2,475 arable. This 
is called the " metayer "), the products being shared between the two accord- 
ing to arrangements previously agreed upon. Earl Cathcart, in his memoir of 
Sir Harry Meysey Thompson in Vol. X. of the Journal (1874), happily de- 
scribed metayage as the " half-holder " system. 
In reply to an inquiry, Mons. J. Laverriere, the accomplished librarian of 
the Societe Nationale d'Agriculture de France (the French Academy of Agri- 
culture), writes : " The system known as metaijage is as old as the world, having 
been practised by the Romans. It is still frequent in Italy, Spain, and France. 
But if I mistake not, it is only in the latter country that an endeavour has been 
made by new combinations to revive and modernise it. Attempts in this direc- 
tion have been made during the last twenty or thirty years, which have caused 
some stir. It is this, no doubt, which has given persons who are not mi conrant 
with the history of metayage the impression that it had to do with co-operative 
agriculture, or co-operative agricultural association in production, of the same 
kind as the industrial co-operative associations of production as established in 
England and some other countries. Attacked in France by the partisans of 
farm tenancies at a rent, metayage has nevertheless constantly found enthu- 
siastic defenders, even amongst our most illustrious agriculturists. Thus the 
Count de Gasparin, one of our agriculturists as remarkable for his science as 
for his technical experience, has devoted to mfitayage a special work published 
about 1830. This can still, notwithstanding its age, be consulted with profit. 
M. Leonce de Lavergne examined this method of cultivation in his " Rural 
Economy of France,' the complement of his " Rural Economy of England"; 
andM. Eraile de Laveleye, the eminent Belgian economist, has also studied the 
subject. But it is especially the favourable results obtained by application of 
this system to his domain at Theneuille (Allier) by M. Louis Bignon, that have 
latterly restored to metayage a certain amount of popularity. Some interest- 
ing particulars are given in this subject in a paper in the Memoirs of the 
Societe Nationale d'Agriculture de France for 1870-71. A further reference 
is made, in the Jfemoirs for 187.'), to metayage in the South of France. 
Metayage is practised in Brittany, in the Beaujolais vineyards, in the ordinary 
cultivation of the Dombes (Ain), and in the pastures of Limousin. It is a 
system which has a certain elasticity, since it is applied in the most diverse 
circumstances, and in localities so far distant from one another as the places 
named above." — Ed. 
