Due to the shortage of labor, landlords' returns had decreased from about 20% to 5%. But some found new methods of using land that were more profitable than the customary services of villeins who had holdings of land or the paid labor of practically free men who paid a money rent for land holdings. One method was to turn the land to sheep-breeding. Others leased their demesne land, which transferred the burden of getting laborers from the landlord to the lessor- tenant. The payment was called a "farm" and the tenant a "farmer". First, there were stock-and-land leases, in which both the land and everything required to cultivate it were let together. After 50 years, when the farmers had acquired assets, there were pure land leases. The commutation of labor services into a money payment developed into a general commutation of all services. Lords in need of money gladly sold manumissions to their villeins. The lord and lady of some manors now ate by themselves in a private parlor with a fireplace of its own and the great hall was deserted. Some farmers achieved enough wealth to employ others as laborers on their farms. The laborers lived with their employer in his barn, sleeping on hay in the loft, or in mud huts outside the barn. The farmer's family lived at one end of the barn around an open fire. Their possessions typically were: a chest, a trestle table, benches, stools, an iron or bronze cauldron and pots, brooms, wooden platters, wooden bowls, spoons, knives, wooden or leather jugs, a salt box, straw mattresses, wool blankets, linen towels, iron tools, rushlightholders, and livestock. Some farmers could afford to have a wooden four-posted bedstead, hens, geese, pigs, a couple of cows, a couple of sheep, or two plow oxen. They ate dark bread and beans and drank water from springs. Milk and cheese were a luxury for them. Farming still occupied the vast majority of the population. Town inhabitants and university students went into the fields to help with the harvest in the summer.