Agriculture is commonplace to state that no understanding of the economy of non-industrialized countries is possible without taking into account the overwhelming mass of people who constitutes the peasantry. With the exception of a few government officials, a few craftmen and a small trading class, all other Lao live in villages. No adequate accounts exists of the natural economy of the people of Laos. This paper surveys Laos prior to 1960 and the Lao civil war.