The land allotted to each separate cultivator is managed by himself exclusively; and the practice of labouring in common, which is usual among the inhabitants of the same village on continental India, is here unknown. Every one, generally speaking, has his own field, his own plough, his own buffaloes or oxen; prepares his farm with his own hand, or the assistance of his family at seed-time, and reaps it by the same means at harvest. By the recent surveys, when every thing concerning the wealth and the resources of the country became the subject of inquiry, and means were employed to obtain the most accurate information, it was ascertained, that the number of buffaloes on that part of the island to which these surveys extended, was nearly in the proportion of one to a family, or a pair to two families; and that, including the yokes of oxen, which are to those of buffaloes as one to three, this proportion would be very much exceeded. In some provinces, more exclusively devoted to grain cultivation, the number of ploughs, and of course oxen or buffaloes, nearly amounts to one to a family. In other cases, where they fall much short of this proportion, a considerable part of the inhabitants must be engaged in labours unconnected with agriculture, or the cultivators must be engaged in rearing produce, where the assistance of those animals is not required. Thus in _Japára_ and _Jawána_, where the number of inhabitants is 103,290, or about twenty-six thousand families, the number of ploughs amount to 20,730, and of buffaloes to 43,511; while in the Batavian Regencies, where the coffee culture employs a considerable part of the inhabitants, the number of families is about sixty thousand, and of ploughs only 17,366. The lands on Java are so minutely divided among the inhabitants of the villages, that each receives just as much as can maintain his family and employ his individual industry.
"A time there was, ere England's griefs began, When ev'ry rood of ground maintain'd its man; For him light labour spread her wholesome store, Just gave what life requir'd, and gave no more: His best companions, innocence and health; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth."
But situated as the Javan peasantry are, there is but little inducement to invest capital in agriculture, and much labour must be unprofitably wasted: as property is insecure, there can be no desire of accumulation; as food is easily procured, there can be no necessity for vigorous labour. There exists, as a consequence of this state of nature and of the laws, few examples of great affluence or abject distress among the peasantry; no rich men, and no common beggars. Under the native governments and the Regents of the Dutch Company, there were no written leases or engagements binding for a term of years; nor could such contracts well be expected to be formed with an officer, who held his own place by so unstable a tenure as the will of a despot. The cultivator bargained with the _Búkul_ or _Petíng'gi_ for a season or for two crops, had his land measured off by the latter, and paid a stipulated portion of the produce either in money or in kind. When the crop had arrived at maturity, the cultivator, if his engagement was for so much of the produce in kind, cut down his own share, and left that of the landlord on the ground.