THE PROBLEM OF RENT 115

from the cultivation or use of land and its capital value, and
making that proportion either greater or less than the
current rate of interest expresses. Consideration must also
be given to the social standing secured through the ownership
 of land. But, though these other features enter as
important modifying influences, the amount of the actual
and prospective rent-paying power of the land is the fundamental
 basis on which its value depends. Thus the problem
of rent, though directly a problem concerned with the use of
land for a more or less brief period, is in reality closely
connected with the problem of land values, a problem which
Is of interest and importance whether land be or be not
rented.
Some new features are introduced into our problem when
we deal with contracts for the hire of land in exchange for a
proportionate share of the produce instead of in consideration
 of the payment of an agreed-on sum of money. This
plan of farming on shares, or metayer tenancy,—to use
phraseology employed in America and in France (and some
other European countries) for a tenure fundamentally similar,
though the former is devised in relation to modern conditions,
 the latter is a survival from past ages,—introduces
new influences to determine the degree of intensity of
cultivation which will be most profitable to the tenant. If
he is to receive but the half (to take a common proportion)
of any additional produce, that half of the produce must
suffice to repay him for his contribution towards its production.
 He would not, therefore, cultivate to the same
degree of intensity as a cultivating owner, unless the
proprietor bore, in one way or other, an equal share with
himself in the expenses of raising the additional produce.
We shall not pursue this subject further here, but it affords
a useful and instructive example of the way in which the
supply of produce of the soil may be influenced by the kind
of interest possessed, by the responsible cultivator of the soil,
in the results of his toil. The relative advantages of large
and small farming, of peasant proprietorships and the like,
afford further exercises in applying general principles to
special conditions. Large farms offer opportunities for