This vineyard the owner had let out to husbandmen, while he himself ‘travelled away’ [abroad], as St. Luke adds, ‘for a long time.’ From the language it is evident, that the husbandmen had the full management of the vineyard. We remember, that there were three modes of dealing with land. According to one of these (Arisuth), ‘the labourers’ employed received a certain portion of the fruits, say, a third or a fourth of the produce. In such cases it seems, at least sometimes, to have been the practice, besides giving them a proportion of the produce, to provide also the seed (for a field) and to pay wages to the labourers.e The other two modes of letting land were, either that the tenant paid a money rent to the proprietor, or else that he agreed to give the owner a definite amount of produce, whether the harvest had been good or bad.g Such leases were given by the year or for life; sometimes the lease was even hereditary, passing from father to son. There can scarcely be a doubt that it is the latter kind of lease (Chakhranutha, from חכר) which is referred to in the Parable, the lessees being bound to give the owner a certain amount of fruits in their season.