village, how much rice land was necessary for the subsistence of the village, and they then ordered the remainder, usually one-fifth, to be planted with sugar-canes. At the same time, they explained that the value of the crop of sugar would be much greater than that of the rice crop, and promised that the peasants should be paid not only for the crops, but also for the labour of cutting the canes and carrying them to the mill. When, at the end of two years, the mills had been built and the plantations established, another advance was made by the department to the manufacturers. This was capital sufficient to pay for the value of the sugar crop, estimated as it stood, for the wages of the peasants, and generally for the expenses of manufacture. This second advance was at once repaid by the produce of the mill. At first the department required the manufacturer to deliver the whole amount of produce to them at a price one-third in excess of the cost of production. Subsequently he was allowed the option of delivering the whole crop to Government, or of delivering so much of the produce only as would pay for the interest on the crop advance, together with the instalment of the original capital annually due. Working on these terms, large profits were made by the manufacturers, and there soon came to be a demand for such new contracts as the Government had at their disposal. [Illustration: A PRODUCE MILL. _Page_ 156.] As for the peasants, they were undoubtedly benefited by the introduction of the system. While the land rent continued to be calculated as before, on a basis of the produce of ricefields, the value of the sugar crop was so much greater than that of the rice, which it partially displaced, that the money received for it amounted on the average to twice the sum paid to Government for land rent on the whole of the village land. Moreover, although the estimated price of the crop was paid to the wedanas, or village chiefs, the wages for cutting and carrying were paid to the peasants individually. The value of the crop, the rate of wages, and the relations between the peasants and the manufacturers generally, were settled by the contrôleurs. In 1871, when the culture system was in full operation, there were 39,000 _bouws_, or 70,000 acres, under sugar-cane, giving employment to 222,000 native families, and ninety-seven sugar-mills had been started. One-third of the produce was delivered to Government at the rate of eight florins per picul,[17] and the remaining two-thirds were sold by the manufacturers in open market. In the five years 1866-1870 the Government profit on sugar amounted to rather more than 25,000,000 florins. [Footnote 17: The picul = 135 lbs.]