—this too is invalid, because it assigns a period of time to one of them rather than the other. The previous example assigned a particular area to one of them rather than the other.

If he says, “Whatever barley you grow shall be yours, and whatever wheat you grow shall be mine,” this is invalid, because they have not shared in the type of crop.

If he says, “If you plant it with barley, you shall have one half; and if you plant it with wheat, you shall have one quarter,” this is valid, because there is no ambiguity: if he plants it with wheat, he has a known share, namely one quarter; and if he plants it with barley, he has a known share, namely one half.

His statement, “from what the land produces,” means from the crop. If he gives him the land in return for a share, or for a known amount, of something not produced by the land, then this is not sharecropping; rather, it is a lease. For example, if he says, “Take this land and cultivate it for one hundred sāʿs of wheat,” this is valid, but it is a lease. This is because I have not said, “for one hundred sāʿs from what it produces”; rather, I said, “one hundred sāʿs of wheat.” The payment is now a fixed debt, not something resulting from this cultivator’s work. Instead, it remains a fixed debt, such that even if he does not cultivate the land, he is still liable for one hundred sāʿs.

His statement, “for its owner or the worker,” means that the specified portion may at times be assigned to its owner and at other times to the worker. Thus, if he says, “Take the land, cultivate it, and you shall have one quarter,” then it has been assigned to the worker. But if he says, “Take the land and cultivate it, and I shall have one quarter,” then it has been assigned to the landowner.

Once a share has been assigned to one of them, the author says: “and the remainder belongs to the other.”

His statement, “It is not a condition that the seed and the saplings be provided by the landowner,” means