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Part One
Chapter One
On Wealth
The land is the source or matter from whence all wealth is produced. The labour of man is the form which produces it: and wealth in itself is nothing but the maintenance, conveniencies, and superfluities of life. Land produces herbage, roots, corn, flax, cotton, hemp, shrubs and timber of several kinds, with divers sorts of fruits, bark, and foliage like that of the mulberry-tree for silkworms; it supplies mines and minerals. To all this the labour of man gives the form of wealth. Rivers and seas supply fish for the food of man, and many other things for his enjoyment. But these seas and rivers belong to the adjacent lands or are common to all, and the labour of man extracts from them the fish and other advantages.
Chapter Two
Of Human Societies
Which way soever a society of men is formed the ownership of the land they inhabit will necessarily belong to a small number among them. In wandering societies like Hordes of Tartars and Camps of Indians who go from one place to another with their animals and families, it is necessary that the captain or king who is their leader should fix the boundaries of each head of a family and the quarters of an Individual around the camp. Otherwise there would always be disputes over the quarters or conveniencies, woods, herbage, water, etc. but when the quarters and boundaries of each man are settled it is as good as ownership while they stay in that place. In the more settled societies: if a prince at the head of an army has conquered a country, he will distribute the lands among his officers or favourites according to their merit or his pleasure (as was originally the case in France): he will then establish laws to vest the property in them and their descendants: or he will reserve to himself the ownership of the land and employ his officers or favourites to cultivate it: or will grant the land to them on condition that they pay for it an annual quit rent or due: or he will grant it to them while reserving his freedom to tax them every year according to his needs and their capacity. In all these cases these officers or favourites, whether absolute owners or dependents, whether stewards or bailiffs of the produce of the land, will be few in number in proportion to all the inhabitants. Even if the prince distribute the land equally among all the inhabitants it will ultimately be divided among a small number. One man will have several children and cannot leave to each of them a portion of land equal to his own; another will die without children, and will leave his portion to some one who has land already rather than to one who has none; a third will be lazy, prodigal, or sickly, and be obliged to sell his portion to another who is frugal and industrious, who will continually add to his estate by new purchases and will employ upon it the labour of those who having no land of their own are compelled to offer him their labour in order to live. At the first settlement of Rome each citizen had two journaux of land allotted to him. Yet there was soon after as great an inequality in the estates as that which we see today in all the countries of Europe. The land was divided among a few owners. Supposing then that the land of a new country belongs to a small number of persons, each owner will manage his land himself or let it to one or more farmers: in this case it is essential that the farmers and labourers should have a living whether they cultivate the land for the owner or for the farmer. The overplus of the land is at the disposition of the owner: he pay part of it to the prince or the government, or else the farmer does so directly at the owner's expense. As for the use to which the land should be put, the first necessity is to employ part of it for the maintenance and food of those who work upon it and make it productive: the rest depends principally upon the humour and fashion of living of the prince, the lords, and the owner: if these are fond of drink, vines must be cultivated; if