Metayage and its Applicability to England. 
3C1 
popular language a small farm in France is still sometimes called a 
metairie, even though the tenant uses no movable capital other than 
his own, and his rent is fixed on the English system. But it must 
be remembered that before the Revolution farmers were nearly 
synonymous with mdtayers , — five-sixths of the whole land of the 
kingdom according to Turgot, seven-eighths according to Arthur 
Young, being held under metayage , though the latter writer states 
almost simultaneously ( Travels in France , i. 399, 407) that one- 
third of the land of the kingdom is in the hands of peasant 
proprietors. 
From the thirteenth century the system continued in France 
with great persistence until the end of the last century. The 
Revolution, by confiscating the land of the clergy, and selling the 
estates of those who had been driven out of the country, or out of 
the world, brought about a large immediate increase of small pro- 
prietors and a diminution in the number of mdtayers. Thus in 
1832 M. de Gasparin estimated that more than half the soil was 
under metayage ; in 1842 M. de Chateauvieux put the proportion at 
one-third; whilst in 18G0 M. de Lavergne thought the number of 
metayers about equal to that of the farmers. It appears that a re- 
action has set in during the present generation, and in spite of some 
checks metayage is believed to be now gaining in favour. In the 
Statistique agricole, published in 1886, figures of which the follow- 
ing are the equivalents are given relative to land under cultivation 
in 1882 : — 
Acres Acres 
4,324,917 holdings averaging 11-07 = 47,868,820 ( estivated by 
° ° ° l their owners. 
347,858 mUairies „ 32 21 = 11,212,125 „ „ 
749,559 farms on hire „ 29-49 = 22,1 14,201 „ „ 
Total 5,422,334 holdings 81,195,140 
The system of metayage predominates especially in the centre 
and south of France, and in Mayenne in the west, where during the 
agricultural crisis farmers have become metayers almost without 
exception. Broadly speaking, the metayer provides the labour and 
cultivator who tills a farm or piece of ground for the owner on condition of 
receiving a share of the produce, generally a half, the owner usually furnishing 
the whole or a part of the stock, tools, &c. This system of cultivation, called 
metayage, or the metayer system, prevails in the central and southern parts of 
France and in most of Italy, and is practised to a considerable extent in the 
Southern United States. 
The principle of the mitayer system is that the labourer or peasant makes his engagement 
directly with the landowner, and pays, not a fixed rent, either in money or in kind, but a certain 
proportion of the produce, or rather of what remains of the produce after deducting what is con- 
sidered necessary to keep up the stock. The proportion is usually, as the name imports, one-half, 
but in several districts in Italy it is two-thirds. Respecting the supply of stock, the custom 
varies from place to place ; in some places the landlord furnishes the whole, in others half, in 
others some particular part ; as, for instance, the cattle and seed, the labourer providing the im- 
plements.— J. S. Mill, Political Econ., II. viii. § 1. 
The metayer has less motive to exertion than the peasant proprietor, since only half the fruits 
of his industry, instead of the whole, are his own. — Ibid. II. viii. § 2. 
It may be added that both metayage and metayer occur in the Stanford Lie - 
tionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases . — Ed. 
