TRESENT STAGE OF EUROrEAN HUSBANDRY. 237 



are woods near the arable land, the peasant seeks to turn 

 the fallen leaves to account as manure ; he breaks up 

 the natiu'al meadows which are still rich in elements 

 of food for plants, and converts them into arable land ; 

 then he proceeds to burn down the forests, and to 

 manure his fields with the ashes. When the gradual 

 exhaustion in the productive power of the land has led to 

 a corresponding decrease in the population, the peasant 

 cultivates his land once every two years as in Catalonia, 

 or once every three years as in Andalusia.* 



No intelhgent man who contemplates the present state 

 of agriculture with an unbiased mind, can remain in 

 doubt, even for a moment, as to the stage which hus- 

 bandry has reached in Europe. We find that all coun- 

 tries and regions of the earth where man has omitted to 

 restore to the land the conditions of its continued fer- 

 tihty, after having attained the culminating period of the 

 greatest density of population, fall into a state of bar- 

 renness and desolation. Historians are wont to attribute 

 the decay of nations to political events and social causes. 

 These may, indeed, have greatly contributed to the 

 result ; but we may well ask whether some far deeper 

 cause, not so easily recognised by historians, has not pro- 

 duced these events in the hves of nations, and whether 



* The Emperor Charles V. gave orders that the meadoAvs recently 

 turned into arable land should be restored to their former condition. 

 Even before the time of Charles V. orders of the same nature had been 

 issued by the first Catholic Kings, and at a still earlier period by Pedro the 

 Cruel of Castile. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, Henrique of 

 Castile prohibited the exportation of cattle, on pain of death ; and as 

 early as the commencement of the fourteenth century, King Alonzo 

 Onzeno had issued ordinances for the preservation of meadows and 

 pastures. ('Bilder aus Spanien von Karl Freiherrn von Thienen, Adler- 

 llycht.' Berlin : Dunker, p. 241.) All in vain ! for what avails the 

 power of even the mightiest monarcLs against the irrepressible action of 

 a law of nature ? 



