88 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. Part I. 



duce a difference of temperature of twenty degrees : and the effect of this difference of geo- 

 graphical position is greatly encreased by the variations of surface ; the immense ridges of 

 mountains ; inlets of the sea, lakes, and rivers, and extensive plains. The winters in 

 Denmark and Prussia are very severe, and last from six to eight months ; the winters in 

 the south of Hungary are from one to three months. The south and south-east of Ger- 

 nlany, comprising part of Bohemia, Silesia, and Hungary, are the most mountainous : 

 and the north-east, including Prussia and part of Holstein and Hanover, presents the 

 most level surface. The richest soil is included in the interior and south-western parts ; 

 in the immense plain of the Danube, from Presburg to Belgrade, an extent of three 

 hundred miles ; and great part of Swabia, Franconia, and Westphalia. The most bar- 

 ren parts are the mountains and sandy plains and heaths of the north, and especially of 

 Prussia ; and that country, and part of Denmark and Holstein, abounds also in swamps, 

 marshes, and stagnant lakes. 



545. Landed ])roperty throughout Germany is almost universally held on feudal 

 tenure, and strictly entailed on the eldest son. It is generally in estates from one hun- 

 dred acres upwards, which cannot be divided or encreased. Most of the sovereigns liave 

 large domains, and also the religious and civil corporations. 



546. The farmers of Germany are almost every where metayers; but the variety of 

 this mode of holding is much greater there than in France and Italy. In many cases the 

 farmer does not even find stock ; and in others, as in Hungary and part of Prussia, he 

 and his family are little better off than the slave cultivators of Russia. In Brandenburg, 

 Saxony, and part of Hanover, the farmers hold on the meyer tenure, or that of paying a 

 fixed rent of corn or money, unalterable either by landlord or tenant. In Mecklen- 

 burg, Friesland, and Holstein, most of the^ property is free, as in Britain, and there 

 agriculture is carried to great perfection. Tithes are almost universal in Germany j 

 but are not felt as any great grievance. Poor-rates are unknown. 



547. The consequence of these arrangements of landed property in Germany is a com- 

 paratively fixed state of society. The regulations which have forbid an augmentation 

 of rent, or a union of farms, and which have secured to the owner the full enjoyment 

 of the use of the land, have prevented any person, except the sovereign, from amassing 

 an enormous quantity, and have preserved among the inhabitants a species of equality as 

 to property. There are, comparatively, few absolutely destitute laborers. The mass 

 of the people do not live in such affluence as Englishmen ; but this is more than compen- 

 sated to them by all being in some measure alike. In civilised society, it is not desti- 

 tution, but the craving wants which the splendor of other persons excites, which are 

 the tiue evils of poverty. The meyer regulations have hindered improvement; but they 

 have also hindered absolute destitution and enormous accumulation. 



548. From the regulations concerning landed property in Germany, it has resulted that 

 fewer paupers are found there than in our country. Some other regulations are known, 

 which have probably assisted in protecting Germany from the evil of pauperism to the 

 same extent in which it exists with us. There is no legal provision for paupers. A 

 law of the guilds, which extended to most trades, forbad, and still forbids, where guilds 

 are not abolished, journeying mechanics from marrying ; and, in most countries of 

 Germany, people are obliged to have the permission of the civil magistrate before it is 

 legal for the clergyman to celebrate a marriage. The permission seems to be given or 

 withheld as the parties soliciting it are thought by the magistrates to be capable of main- 

 taining a family. At least, it is to prevent the land from being overrun with paupers 

 that the law on this subject has been made. 



549. The agricidtural j)rnduce of Germany is for the greater part consumed there ; 

 but excellent wines are exported from Hungary and the Rhine ; and also wool, flax, 

 timber, bark, hams, salted and smoked, geese, goose quills, the canary, goldfinch, and 

 other singing birds, silk, &c. 



550. The culture of the mulberry and rearing of the silkworm in Germany, is carried 

 on as far north as Berlin ; that of the vine, to Dresden ; and that of the peach, as a 

 standard in the fields, to Vienna. The maize is little cultivated in Germany ; but patches 

 of it are to be found as far north as Augsburg, in Swabia. Rice is cultivated in a few 

 places in Westphalia. The olive is not planted, because to it, even in the warmest part 

 of Germany, the winters would prove fatal. 



551. The common cw^^fz;a<io'n includes all the different corns ; and many or most of 

 the legumes, roots, herbage, and grasses, grown in Britain. They grow excellent hemp, 

 flax, and oats ; and rye is the bread-corn of all Germany. They also cultivate turnips, 

 rapeseed, madder, woad, tobacco, hops, saffron, teasle, carroway ; many garden vegetables, 

 such as white beet, French beans, cabbage, carrot, parsnip, &c. ; and some medicinal 

 plants, as rhubarb, lavender, mint, &c., independently of their garden culture of fruits, 

 culinary vegetable^, and herbs for apothecaries. The most common rotation in Ger- 

 many is two corn crops and a fallow ; or, in poor lands, one or two corn crops, and two 



