tlie Austro-Hungarian Empire. 347 



forming pastui'cs for sheep, and furnishing- a supply of hay. 

 Vetches and oats mixed are very generally used as fodder crops 

 throughout summer, and the damp and rather cold season ot 

 1873 particularly favoured their growth. There appeared 

 usually to be only one sort of wheat, one sort of rye, and one 

 sort of barley cultivated, and these crops covered a large pro- 

 portion of the country. A good deal of corn is cut green, 

 especially upon peasant-land, to supply fodder during the hot 

 months. Artificial manures are never used, and only once did 

 I see oilcake, or anv artificial and extraneous sort of cattle or 

 sheep food. Rape is also a favourite, and magnificent crops of 

 it were to be seen. Oxen are almost universally employed for 

 working the land, and ploughing is generally shallow and im- 

 perfect. There is as yet no steam ploughing or cultivating. 

 Turning to live stock, we find the Hungarian ox, the merino 

 sheep, and the woolly Hungarian swine, almost in complete 

 possession of the field. Drilling is extending, and is becoming 

 general on the large estates, as also is reaping by machinery 

 and threshing by steam. Broad-casting, hand-reaping, and 

 treading grain out by horses, are, however, still practised in 

 many districts. 



Agriculture without artificial manures and foods, robbed of 

 steam cultivation, and having no great diversity of animals and 

 cultivated plants, loses many of its most interesting points as a 

 study, and hence, after English farming with its multitudinous 

 and important problems, that of Hungary falls somewhat flat. 



Rotations. — Rotations of crops are very strictly adhered to in 

 Hungary, and often are made out prospectively for 20 years, and 

 then rigidly kept. In this particular Hungarian agriculture 

 differs from our own, for it is not too much to say that in 

 England the tendency is to slacken the cropping restrictions 

 imposed on tenants. It would be wearisome, and perhaps un- 

 profitable, to give a large number of these rotations, varying as 

 they do in every conceivable manner, from a 3 to an 11 years' 

 course. At Ungarisch-Altenburg, upon the Archduke's estate, 

 no fewer than 36 different rotations are in use, and from the 

 elaborate manner in which this and other subjects connected 

 with scientific agriculture are studied, probably some principle 

 lies at the foundation of each. 



Sometimes green crops predominate, and in other cases the 

 rotations are very scourging or severe, indicating very rich land. 

 The following are examples : — 



1. Barley. 1. Peas, mixed Fodder. 



2. Eye. 2. Wheat. 



3. Millet (Po.nicum italicuyu). 3. Maize. 



4. Maize. ■ 4. Barley. 



