THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



407 



ness, is just 6 florins (128.) ; and as the einicr is aoKl at 10 

 florins (209.), there remains a luofit of 4 florins (8:<.) per 

 eimer, or of 4 kreutzera per mass (Ll.41,or l^ii. per 2i piiitr*). 

 Now, a quintal (1401b3.) of potatoea [iroilucing 7 mass (about 

 16 pints) of alcoliol, the tubers will be piid for at the rate of 

 42 kreutzers (about 16^d.), that ia to say, at a price at which 

 it is impossible to procure them. These figures explain the 

 motives that have induced the distillers to throw themselves 

 again upon grain, and also show how inuch the advantages of 

 their operations depend on the employment of the residue. 



With these residues they fatten oxen, whose food ration is 

 calculated at the rate of ten pounds of residue for one pound 

 of hay. Accord. ig to this, 150 livres or 50 mass of residue, 

 which are obtained from 100 livre-i of pot:»toe8, are equivalent 

 to 15 livres of hay. In fixing thi price of hay at 1 florin 30 

 kreutzers per quintal, we find that the 50 mass of residue 

 ought to be worth about 6 kreutzers , and it is, in fact, the 

 price paid at the great distilleries. 



But it is in fattening pigs that the most advantageous ap- 

 plication of them is attained, and all the great distilleries 

 fatten pigs of the Hungarian breed. This is, it may be said, 

 one of the conditions of their success ; for if they confined 

 themselves to fattening oxeu, and the price of alcohol were to 

 be still further reduced, their existence might become a ques- 

 tion. But the fattiug of pigs appears to have in Austria a 

 prospect so ranch the more certain, that it finds at Hamburg 

 a considerable outlet in four large establishments for salting, 

 which do not consume less than from 2,400 to 3,000 hogs per 

 week. 



The manufacture of alcohol, combined with the fatting of 

 cattle, possesses for Austria an economic importance so much 

 the greater, that the production of meat and skins is not equal 

 to the requirements of the consumption, and the expense of 

 the importatioua amounts annually to nearly 23 million franca 

 (£920,000 sterling). 



They reckon in the Auatriau monarchy 16,000 distilleries, 

 the annual produce of which rises to 2,900,000 hectolitres 

 (63,828,037 gallons) of alcohol, and 21 million hectoUtres of 

 residue, which is equivalent to 242 million kilogrammes of 

 hay. This quantity of hay is sufficient for fatting 60,000 

 head of neat cattle of average size, which yield, at least 504 

 million kilogrammes of dung, with which they manure 17,000 

 hectares (or 42,500 acres). 



We may judge by these estimates the important position 

 the production of alcohol holds in Austria. It is a manu- 

 facture, the interests of which demand to be taken into very 

 serious consideration ; and it will suffice to reform or to 

 reduce the duties which are levied on the alcohols at the 

 delivery, to give it a fresh impulse, to call forth large estab- 

 lishments, and to annihilate the small distilleries, which 

 produce at a dear rate, and exercise a fatal infl lence over 

 the labouring classes. 



In passing successively in review the breeding of Merinos, 

 the manufacture of sugar, and the distillery, we have studied 

 the three branches of rural industry which, up to the mid- 

 dle of the nineteeuth centurj', have the most particularly 

 fixed the attention of the Austrian cultivator.s, and laid the 

 foundation of their prosperity. As to the rest, with the ex- 

 ception of the breeding of horses, they troubled themselves 

 but little, and matters have proceeded without any other 

 guide than chance. 



In the meanwhile, a few amateurs apply themselves sedu- 

 lously to the breeding of horned cattle, and import into their 

 domains animals of the breeds of Berne, Schwytz, the 

 Tyrol, Piuzgau, and Murzthal. But meat, milk, butter, 

 and cheese are sold at prices so low that they afford no en- 



couragement to the iniprovors and importers, whose choice, 

 besides, often falls on races not at all suited to tlie country. 

 Do they not also commit an error in repeating to nausea 

 that cattle are a '• necestary evil," and that cows yield no 

 income, but that it is still necessary to resign themselves 

 to keeping some of them in order to profit by their dung ? But 

 with such conditions horned-cattle-breeding can only recede 

 to that point that it is necessary to pass in review hundreds 

 of animab, in order to find a bull or cow approaching to 

 faultless. They no longer trouble themselves about race 

 and production. Tiiey purchase at hazard •, they couple and 

 cross without attending to the milking qualities, tendency 

 to fattening, or aptitude to labour, and hold themselves 

 well satisfied if they can but obtain animals of a large size. 



The rearing of cattle is concentrated more and more in 

 the steppes and mountainous regions in proportion as the 

 value of land increases in the plains ; and as the deficiency 

 of good stallions becomes every day more apparent, it is to 

 be feared that the breeding of horned cattle only constitutes 

 a new stage in the bad course on which it has entered. The 

 situation is not better in regard to the porcine race ; and if, 

 between ourselves, the breeding of horses has made, and 

 still makes, undoubted progress, it must be attributed to the 

 increase in the number of stallions, and to the care they 

 have taken to select them in perfect analogy with the loca 1 

 races. 



As to cultivation, properly speaking, they hold it to be 

 ruinous ; and under this idea, it is greatly neglected. At 

 the same time, under the influence of continually increasing 

 demands and the advance in price, the cultivation of hops 

 and oleaginous seeds has received a very large extension, 

 especially in Hungary. 



The art of cultivating the meadows and improving the 

 forests remains stationary, and has preserved its traditional 

 stamp even to the middle of the nineteenth century; and 

 neither the forest law promulgated in lol5 in Lower Aus- 

 tria, nor the institution of forest masters and agents by 

 arrondissement and districts, have beeu able to emancipate 

 the art of the forester from the condition in which it lan- 

 guished. 



By concentrating itself in the hands of the wealthy pro- 

 prietors, who have planted large vineyards, and have em- 

 ployed themselves in making choice of better viue-stocks, and 

 introducing improvements in the manner of treating the wines 

 iu cellars, the culture of the vine has realized iu lower Austria, 

 a progress that we cannot pass by in silence. 



But since the soil has beeu freed from the trammels which 

 weighed upon it ; since above all, the price of agricultural 

 produce has sensibly risen, a new era of prosperity has opened 

 to agriculture in Austria. 



The abolition of the statute labour has given rise to the 

 establishment of numerous factories of aratory implements at 

 Vienna, Prague, Pesth, Limberg, Gratz, Audutz, and 

 Hohenmauaen. Thrashing by the flail has given place to 

 the thrashing machine ; the drill is substituted in part for the 

 hand of man ; the ancient wooden plough, with its long mould- 

 board, has been laid aside ; the rake has beeu replaced by the 

 haymaking machine ; the scythe and the sickle have been 

 transformed; the extirpator has taken place of the hand-hoe; 

 the sub-soil plough has done the office of the spade and pick- 

 axe. Drainage with its tiles of baked earth has facilitated the 

 escape of the subterranean water. Lastly, steam has won its 

 place in rural operations; and industry displays an energy and 

 activity unexampled in the annals of Austrian agriculture. 



Under the empire of the dearneas of grain, meat, wool, and 

 wood, manufactories of manure have beeu established atLorber, 



