Gardens or plantations were usually let, if al- ready planted, at a rent of two-thirds produce, as fixed by the Code (§ 64). Neglect which would diminish the crop was guarded against by enacting that an average yield should be returned (§ 65), Land was given to be planted as a garden, the owner often stipulating as to what plants he wished for. The terms were that the gardener paid no rent for four years, and in the fifth year he and his landlord divided the land equally (§ 60). If he left part uncultivated, that was reckoned in his share (§ 61). If he had failed to carry out his work, he was bound to do so before giving it up, and further fined an average year’s rent for the time he held Us if it was corn land (§ 62), or ten GUR of cor per GAN for each year, if it had been unreclaimed land
63
2. The Babylonian landowner was often in want of ready money despite his magnificent harvests,
which often yielded a hundredtold, He had to
employ extra labourers to get in hig harvest, find °
seed at seedtime, and wasliable to destructive floods. If he had borrowed money and a storm destroyed his crops, he might post-date the bond, and not pay interest on the loan that year (§ 48). He frequently pledged his field to a money-lender; but, whatever the terms of his offer, the Code enacted that he should always reap the crop himself, and from the produce pay off the loan, and the expenses of the
CODE OF HAMMURABI
lender, if he had to find a cultivator (§§ 49, 50). Speculation in ‘futures’ was forbidden to the money-lender. Further, this man could not de- mand money ; corn or produce was legal tender in satisfaction of such loans (§ 51). It was a practice with money-lenders to stipulate for the return of a loan in the exact form in which it was borrowed. If the cultivator put in by the creditor does not produce a crop, as the owner had left the care of the field to the creditor, he must bear the loss ; he can claim no rebate on that account (§ 52). Hence it was dangerous to mortgage for more than an average crop. Gardens or plantations were - also protected from money-lenders’ speculations in the same way (§ X). The owner, whatever his offer, must take the crop himself, and whatever is over and above his debt and interest is his. He was protected in other ways. No one could distrain upon a working ox, except under fine of one-third of a mina of silver (§ 241). The ox was not only used for ploughing, it was constantly employed to work the watering machines, which sometimes required as many as eight oxen. It was also needed for threshing.
3. Babylonian culture was dependent upon water supply. On the one side, floods were frequent, and had to be provided against by an elaborate system of ditches and canals; on the other, the summer heat turned all herbage to dust, unless watered. One chief claim to the gratitude of posterity on the part of kings and priests was the furnishing of new canals. Once made, these were expected to be kept in order by the riparian landowners. The work of repairs, dredging, and cleaning was always considerable, from the floods, silt, and rapid growth of water vegetation. Hammurabi’s letters often deal with the needs of the canals (King, Letéers, pp. 15, 16, 18, 64, lxiv f., xxxvif.).
The ordinary repair of the bank was the duty of the man whose field adjoined it. If he neglected to strengthen it, a burst was likely. He was responsible for the damage done to the neighbours’ crops (§ 53). He and all his possessions could be sold to pay the damage (§ 54). He had the right to open a runnel to water his field; but, if he left it running and swamped his neighbours’ crops, he had to compensate (§ 55) according to the extent of the damage (§56). The theft ofa watering machine, probably that consisting of a pole and bucket, was penalized by five shekels of silver. ‘The bucket alone, or a harrow, was protected from theft by a fine of three shekels ($§ 259, 260).
4. Considerable attention is paid by the Code to fixing wages, or hire. The harvester had to be paid eight GUR of corn per year (§ 257). An ordinary labourer was paid six 8# of silver per day for the first five months, five SE for the remaining seven (§ 273). This would be about twelve G@uR of corn per year. A working ox could be hired for four GUR of corn per year (§ 242), a milch cow for three GUR (§ 243). n ox for threshing fetched twenty K4 of corn per day, an ass ten KA, a calf 1 KA (§§ 268-270). A waggon, with its driver and oxen, cost one hundred and eighty K4 of corn per day (§ 271). As the waggon alone cost forty KA (§ 272), and two oxen another forty K4 (§ 268), we may take it that a man cost one hundred KA per uey for carting. A cart might be hired for ten KA a day (S 572), An ox-driver had six @UR of corn