If he has made improvements in the soil, he has the possessor's right of preference.

Never, under any circumstances, can he be allowed to claim a property-title to the soil which he cultivates, on the ground of his skill as a cultivator.
To change possession into property, something is needed besides labor, without which a man would cease to be proprietor as soon as he ceased to be a laborer.

Now, the law bases property upon immemorial, unquestionable possession; that is, prescription.

Labor is only the sensible sign, the physical act, by which occupation is manifested.

If, then, the cultivator remains proprietor after he has ceased to labor and produce; if his possession, first conceded, then tolerated, finally becomes inalienable,--it happens by permission of the civil law, and by virtue of the principle of occupancy.