Book 1. AGRICULTURE IN GERMANY. 91 



565. The agricultnral institution of Moegelin is situated in the country or march of 

 Brandenburg, about forty-five miles from Berlin. The chief professor, Von Thaer, was 

 formerly a medical practitioner at Celle, near Luneburg, in the kingdom of Hanover ; 

 and had distinguished himself by the translation of various agricultural works from the 

 French and English, and by editing a Magazine of Rural Eco7iomy. About 1804, the 

 King of Prussia invited him to settle in his dominions, and gave him the estate of 

 Moegelin to improve and manage as a pattern farm. 



566. This estate consists of 1200 acres. Thaer began by erecting extensive buildings 

 for himself, three professors, a variety of tradesmen, the requisite agricultural buildings, 

 and a distillery. The three profetsors are, one for mathematics, chemistry, and geology; 

 one for veterinary knowledge ; and a third for botany, and the use of the diflerent vegetable 

 productions in the Materia Medica, as well as for entomology. Besides these, an ex- 

 perienced agriculturist is engaged, whose office it is to point out to the pupils the mode 

 of applying the sciences to the practical business of husbandry. The course commences 

 in September. During the winter months, the time is occupied in mathematics, and 

 the first six books of Euclid are studied ; and in the summer, the geometrical knowledge 

 is practically applied to tlie measurement of land, timber, buildings, and other objects. 

 The first principles of chemistry are unfolded. By a good but economical apparatus, 

 various experiments are made, both on a large and small scale. For the larger experi- 

 ments, the brew-house and still-house, with their respective fixtures, are found highly 

 useful. 



567. Much attention is paid to the analysation of various soils, and the diflferent 

 kinds, with the relative quantity of their component parts, are arranged with great order 

 and regularity. The classification is made with neatness, by having the specimens of 

 soil arranged in order, and distinguished by difl['erent colors, llius, for instance, if the 

 basis of tiie soil be sandy, the glass has a cover of yellow paper ; if the next predominating 

 earth be calcareous, the glass has a white ticket on its side j if it be red clay, it has a 

 red ticket ; if blue clay, a brown one. Over these tickets, others, of a smaller size, 

 indicate by their color the third greatest quantity of the particular substance contained 

 in the soil. This matter may appear to many more ingenious than useful, and savoring 

 too much of the German habit of generalising. The classification of Von Thaer is, 

 however, as much adopted, and as commonly used on the large estates in Germany, 

 wJiere exact statistical accounts are kept, as the classification of Linnaeus in natural 

 history, is throughout the civilised world. 



568. There is a large botanical garden, arranged on the system of the Swedish 

 naturalist, kept in excellent order, with all the plants labelled, and the Latin as well as 

 German names. An herbarium, with a good collection of dried plants, which is 

 constantly encreasing, is open to the examination of the pupils, as well as skeletons of 

 the different animals, and casts of their several parts, which must be of great use in 

 veterinary pursuits. Models of agricultural implements, especially of ploughs, are pre- 

 served in a museum, which is stored as well with such as are common in Germany, as 

 with those used in England, or other countries. 



569. The various implements used on the farm are all made by smiths, wheelers, and 

 carpenters, residing round the institution; the workshops are open to the pupils, and 

 they are encouraged by attentive inspection, to become masters of the more minute 

 branches of the economy of an estate. 



570. The sum paid by each pupil is four hundred rix dollars annually, besides which 

 they provide their own beds and breakfasts. In this country, such an expense precludes 

 the admission of all but youths of good fortune. Each has a separate apartment. They 

 are very well behaved young men, and their conduct to each other, and to the professors^ 

 was polite, even to punctilio. 



571. Jacob's opinion of this institution is, that an attempt is made to crowd too much* 

 instruction into too short a compass, for many of the pupils spend but one year in the 

 institution ; and thus only the foundation, and that a very slight one, can be laid in so- 

 siiort a space of time. It is, however, to be presumed, that the young men come here 

 prepared with a considerable previous knowledge, as they are mostly between the ages, 

 of twenty and twenty-four, and some few appeared to be still older. 



572. Thefarmat Moegelin was examined by Jacob in the autumn. The soil is light 

 and sandy, and the climate cold. The wheat was put in the ground with a drill of 

 Thaer's invention, which sows and covers nine rows at once, and is drawn by two horses. 

 The saving of seed Thaer considers the only circumstance which makes drilling prefer- 

 able to sowing broad-cast, as far as respects wheat, rye, barley, and oats. The average 

 produce of wheat is sixteen bushels per acre ; not much is sown in Prussia, as rye is the 

 bread corn of that country ; it produces, with Thaer, twenty-two bushels and a half to 

 the acre. The usual rotation of crops is, potatoes or peas, rye, clover, and wheat. 

 Winter tares are killed by the frost, and the summer species come to nothing, owing 

 to the dry soil and drought. The spurry {Spergula) is therefore grown for the winter 



