garden to his wife or daughter, nor can he
assign it for a debt.

39. He may, however, assign a field, garden or house which he has
bought, and holds as property, to his wife or daughter or give it for
debt.

40. He may sell field, garden and house to a merchant [royal agents] or
to any other public official, the buyer holding field, house and garden
for its usufruct.

41. If any one fence in the field, garden and house of a chieftain, man
or one subject to quit-rent, furnishing the palings therefor; if the
chieftain, man or one subject to quit-rent return to field, garden and
house, the palings which were given to him become his property.

42. If any one take over a field to till it, and obtain no harvest
therefrom, it must be proved that he did no work on the field, and he
must deliver grain, just as his neighbor raised, to the owner of the
field.

43. If he do not till the field, but let it lie fallow, he shall give
grain like his neighbor's to the owner of the field, and the field which
he let lie fallow he must plow and sow and return to its owner.

44. If any one take over a waste-lying field to make it arable, but is
lazy, and does not make it arable, he shall plow the fallow field in the
fourth year, harrow it and till it, and give it back to its owner and
for each ten _gan_ [a measure of area] ten _gur_ [dry measure] of grain
shall be paid.

45. If a man rent his field for tillage for a fixed rental, and receive
the rent of his field, but bad weather come and destroy the harvest, the
injury falls upon the tiller of the soil.

46. If he do not receive a fixed rental for his field, but lets it on
half or third shares of the harvest, the grain on the field shall be
divided proportionately between the tiller and the owner.

47. If the tiller, because he did not succeed in the first year, has had
the soil tilled by others, the owner may raise no objection; the field
has been cultivated and he receives the harvest according to agreement.

48. If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain,
or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in
that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his
debt-tablet in water [a symbolic action indicating the inability to pay]
and pays no rent for this year.

49. If any one take money from a merchant, and give the merchant a field
tillable for corn or sesame and order him to plant corn or sesame in the
field, and to