320 Report on tlie Agriculture of 



fragments of the estate are seventy in number, and are all widely 

 separated, running from four to twelve yards broad, and from 

 one-quarter to three-quarters of a mile long. The estates at 

 Pudmeritz, Szuha, and Boleraz are also in the same state. Such 

 circumstances united all the disadvantages of both large and 

 small ownerships, and presented fearful obstacles in the way of 

 scientific agriculture. Previous to 1848 the landlords allowecJ 

 their estates to remain in this dissected and divided condition, 

 for their neighbours, on either side, were also their bondsmen, 

 and could the more conveniently cultivate their lord's land when 

 it lay in close proximity to their own. When the feudal rights 

 of the landlords were bought up, and the peasants were made 

 free, the nobles and large proprietors were obliged to go into 

 the labour-market, and the fearful inconvenience of an estate 

 broken into a thousand strips, intermixed with the land of a, too 

 often, plundering, pilfering population, was found to be intoler- 

 able. A kind of " Enclosure Commission " was therefore formed 

 for the purpose of concentrating scattered estates by fair ex- 

 changes with the peasants. By this means a separation was 

 effected between the great estates of the nobles and the peasant- 

 lands, and a system of organised cultivation became possible. 

 This change is still in progress, but it is by no means uncom- 

 mon even now to find districts in which the Commission has not 

 yet performed its work of centralisation. The changes in the 

 Land Laws before mentioned obliged the landlords to become 

 cultivators. The peasant was relieved from his duty of plough- 

 ing and reaping for his feudal chief, and if the Count's fields 

 were to be reaped at all the Count must reap them himself. 

 Letting the land to farmers was not to be thought of, as a suffi- 

 cient supply of tenants did not exist. An increase therefore of 

 the duties of the stewards upon the estates became necessary, and 

 a remarkable organisation of labour was constituted, enabling the 

 landlords to cultivate the whole of their vast estates by means 

 of a competent staff. A similar state of things appears to have 

 existed in England in the loth century, before the letting of 

 land became general. Probably a corresponding change in 

 favour of tenancies will take place in Hungary, but there is no 

 prospect of such a change being brought about rapidly. Some 

 landlords informed me that they would be very glad to let por- 

 tions of their estates to good English and Scotch tenants upon 

 liberal terms. Others have become attached to their faithful 

 stewards, who have, in some cases, served them for generations, 

 and would hesitate before dismissing them in favour of teiiants. 

 A pleasant solution of this difficulty would be the letting of good 

 farms to stewards who had secured the good-will of their patrons. 

 After inspecting a large number of estates thus directly in the 



