470 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



who then parades the streets, beating a drum and stopping at each 

 corner to announce that such a person has so much land which will be 

 rented on such a day. On the day mentioned, all those interested 

 meet in the public square, and a lawyer, or the village magistrate, 

 states to the assembly the quantity and location, and the general terms 

 on which it will be rented. He then auctions off the lot field by field. 



The highest price paid per acre per year, in E , is seven dollars and 



fifty cents, and poor land rents as low as twelve cents a year. Leases 

 run from six to eighteen years. Each renter of land deposits with the 

 magistrate, at whose oflfice his lease is drawn up, a sum of money equal 

 to the rental of the land he has taken for one year, and in most cases 

 for two years. The money thus deposited remains with the justice 

 during the whole term for which the land is rented, and is then re- 

 turned to the depositor if he has paid everything due the landowner. 

 The amount of ready money thus required is so great that farmers can 

 seldom afford to rent more than a few acres of land. Owing in part 

 to the excessively high rent paid for land, and in part to this deposit, 

 farmers can make little more than their living expenses from rented 

 land. In fact, even those who own their land are glad to get through 

 the year without having to run in debt or to deny themselves some of 

 the necessaries of life. 



Without exception, the methods of cultivation employed around 



E would be thought in this country old-fashioned and ineflScient. 



Even such simple tools as the scythe and cradle are seldom used, almost 

 all the grain being cut handful after handful with a sickle, and then 

 carefully laid out to dry before being bound into small bundles. A 

 whole family works day after day over the grain, handling each straw 

 at least three times, and yet showing no trace of mental fatigue at the 

 (to me) awful monotony of the work, I could only wonder at the 

 temerity of a government which dares to educate a people before 

 whom, from their childhood, lies nothing but the prospect of drudgery 

 so constant and so stupefying. The farmers, to economize time, gen- 

 erally do their threshing at night, rising for this purpose at twelve or 

 one o'clock, and working at it until it is time for their regular day's 

 labor to begin. 



Grains of different sorts and leguminous plants are the main crops 



grown around E , to which each farmer adds whatever he needs 



for his own use. In most cases, also, they do a little market-garden- 

 ing for the neighboring city market. According to the method by 



which all the land belonging to the community of E is cultivated, 



the whole arable soil of the village is divided without regard to pri- 

 vate ownership into three parts, called "Winter, Sommer, and Brach- 

 feld, or fallow. In the Winterfeld are grown those crops which are 



planted in the fall, or early in the spring — being for E mainly 



rye and wheat. The Sommerfeld has the spring-sown crops, of which 

 barley and oats are good examples. The Brachfeld is, as its name de- 



