lay system

The system of remuneration in which fishermen or merchant mariners are paid a lay (a share of the vessel's profit) plus the value of room and board derived from being shipboard and eating in the mess.

He preferred the lay system because there was a chance that he could really clean up if the luck held out.

(UK, archaic, especially)A certain system of fallow farming with a certain crop rotation and rotation of arable and pasturage.

They farmed this whole valley on the lay system back then, and the lord kept the horses and ploughmen busy.