326 Report on the Agriculture of 



mune, and he employs three men and two girls to assist him in 

 working it. 



No. 2 possessed 38 acres of land, and occupied 15 acres as 

 tenant. His stock consisted of two cows, four oxen, two calves, 

 two horses, and about fifty geese. The whole is worked by 

 himself and son, assisted by two men, and his women do not go 

 out to work. At harvest he requires two extra men and two 

 women for three weeks. This man informed me that he could 

 make 160/. a year by his corn. 



No. 3 owns 76 acres of good land. He told me he could grow 

 nearly 23i bushels of wheat and 39 bushels of barley per acre. 



I called on the Hichter, or head of the village, a man of con- 

 siderable power, but a peasant like the rest. He told me that 

 No. 2 is a Jew, who had bought his holding twenty-two years 

 ago, and that his land is worth at the present time 20/. the 

 joch, which will be nearly the same amount per acre, including 

 house and homestead. He also told me that while most of the 

 peasants ploughed 3 inches deep he (the Richter) ploughed 5 or 

 6 inches. 



I visited a number of peasants' houses, which are for the most 

 part comfortable and primitive in style. A peasant homestead 

 forms a long strip extending backwards from the village street, 

 and it is bounded on either side by similar strips possessed by 

 the neighbours. Each strip is about 400 yards long. This is 

 merely the homestead and garden, and the main land of the 

 peasant is scattered through the commune as already described. 



In the neighbourhood of the Archduke Albrecht's estate at 

 Ungarisch-Altenburg, the peasants drill their corn after the 

 example of the estate, instead of following the ordinary practice 

 of broadcasting. At Kcenigsheiden, the property of Count John 

 PalfFy, the peasants are also improving their cultivation in 

 imitation of the good farming on the estate. In other districts 

 the peasant farming is lamentably bad ; the beautiful deep soil 

 being merely scratched, and consequently bearing scant crops, 

 intermixed with forests of thistles. I have seen thistles 7 feet 

 high standing like trees among the corn, and it was curious to 

 notice in the neighbourhood of Mezohegyes these immense 

 thistles left standing after the surrounding corn had been cut, 

 just as though the lazy peasant had not energy enough to strike 

 his scythe through their thick and tough stems. 



Tenant Fakmers. 



Only a small proportion of the land of Hungary is let to 

 tenants. There are, according to a recent census, 2,486,255 

 owners of land and only 48,000 tenants. The system of letting 



