427 



the fields yield two crops in the year. One great want is the entire 

 absence of pasture, for all animals are fed at home, and never put out 

 to graze. The appearance of the country, on this account chiefly, is 

 curious to an English eye, as instead of fine, large fields, they have 

 small patches of difl'erent crops, of one or two acres in extent, grow- 

 ing side by side, without hedge, fence, or tree, giving a patch-work 

 appearance to the whole, which does not at all add to the picturesque 

 character of the scenery, and indeed, after the fine trees and. hedge- 

 rows of old England, makes the country look plain. These small 

 crops, however, have this advantage, — that as in that country there 

 are mostly small farmers, one crop failing they have one or two more 

 to rely on. 



" The chief plants cultivated near Bonn are rye, wheat, oats, barley, 

 potatoes, cabbage (grown near the towns and villages, chiefly for sauer 

 kraut), rich grasses and clover (for the cattle), Ervum Lens, the hop 

 {Humulus Lupulus), Valerianella olitoria, Brassica oleracea, Rapa 

 and Napus, buckwheat, hemp and flax (rarely), and the vine ; and 

 among cultivated trees Robinia Pseud-Acacia (brought from North 

 America) and ^Esculus Hippocastanum (introduced first at Vienna, 

 from the East Indies, in 1575) are most universal. It is astonishing 

 to remark the perseverence and diligence with which the vine is culti- 

 vated. On the almost perpendicular banks of the Rhine, between 

 Mayence and Coblentz, or nearer Bonn, the steep heights of the val- 

 ley of the Ahr are cultivated to their summits, soil being carried up 

 the rocks by means of ladders, and placed in baskets fixed on ledges 

 of the rock, and then dyked round, lest the wind and rain should 

 carry off" the plants. In this Ahr valley there are hills higher than 

 Arthur's Seat, cultivated to their peaks in this way, a specimen of 

 industry rivalling even that of the sands of Holland. 



" The vine is not properly a native of this country, having come 

 from the southern parts of Europe ; but it has in some places escaped 

 from cultivation, and appears wild, and is even held to be so by some 

 authors, 



" Further up the Rhine, towards Mayence and Frankfurt, the cli- 

 mate is warmer; and, on account of the absence of heights, the culti- 

 vation of the vine almost ceases, while tobacco and Indian maize are 

 grown in abundance. Some authors think that Nicotiana Tabacum, 

 latissima, and rustica, are true natives of the Rhine's course ; but I 

 fear that, like the vine and other plants, they have been introduced 

 for cultivation, and have now and then escaped. My specimens of 

 this plant were collected ou the banks of the Maine, near Frankfurt, 



