Book I. AGRICULTURE IN GERMANY. 99 



skill. They live on rye-bread or potatoes, thin soup, and scarcely any animal food but bacon, and a 

 very small portion even of that ; yet they look strong and healthy, and tolerably clean. 



579. The culture of the vine, and the rearing of the silkworm^ is carried on in the more 

 southerly of the recent territorial accessions which has been made by I*russia. The 

 culture of culinary vegetables is carried on round Erfurth, and other towns furnished 

 with them whose neighborhoods are less favorable for their growth. Garden seeds are 

 also raised at Erfurth, and most of the seedsmen of Germany supplied with them. Anise, 

 canary, coriander, mustard, and poppy seeds, are grown for distillers and others, and 

 woad, madder, teasle, saffron, rhubarb, &c., for dyers and druggists. 



580. The present king of Pt^ussia has done much for agriculture, and is said to design 

 more, by lessening the feudal claims of the lords; by permitting estates even of 

 knightly tenure to be purchased by burghers and non-nobles ; by simplifying the modes 

 of conveyance and investiture ; by setting an example of renouncing most of the feudal 

 dues on his vast patrimonial estates; and by making good communications byroads, 

 rivers, and canals, through his extensive territories. (Jacob's Travels, &c. 189.) 



SuBSECT. 4. Agriculture of the Kingdom of Hanover. 



581. The agriculture of the kingdom of Hanoiier has been depicted by Hodgson as it 

 appeared in 1817. The territory attached to the free town of Hanover previously to its 

 elector being made king of Britain, was very trifling ; but so many dukedoms and other 

 provinces have been since added, that it now contains upwards of 11,045 square geo- 

 graphical miles, and 1,314,104 inhabitants. 



582. An agricultural society was founded in Hanover in 1751, by Geo. II., and 

 about the same time one at Celie in Lunebvirg. The principal business of the latter 

 was to superintend and conduct a general enclosure of all the common lands ; it was 

 conducted by Meyer, who wrote a large work on the subject. The present Hanove- 

 rian ministry are following up the plans of Meyer, and, according to Hodgson, are 

 *' extremely solicitous to promote agriculture." 



583. The landed property of Hanover may be thus arranged : One-sixth belongs to 

 the sovereign, possibly three-sixths to the nobles, one-sixth to the corporations of towns 

 and religious bodies, and less than one-sixth to persons not noble. The crown lands are let 

 to noblemen, or rather favored persons, at very moderate rents, who either farm them or 

 sub -let them to farmers. There are six hundred and forty- four noble properties, but 

 few of them with mansions ; the proprietors living in towns. For a nobleman to live in 

 the country without being a magistrate, or without holding some office, is looked on 

 as degrading. Hodgson met with only three instances of nobles cultivating their own 

 estates, and then they lived in towns. The farmers of these estates are bauers or 

 peasants, who hold from ten to eighty acres each, at old fixed rents and services long since 

 established, and which the landlord has no power to alter. " It may be from this 

 cause that so few nobles reside in the country. They have in truth no land but what is 

 occupied by other people. The use of these small portions of land on certain condi- 

 tions, is the property of the occupier, which he can sell, as the stipulated rent and 

 services are the property of the landlord. The bauer has an hereditary right to the use ; 

 the landlord an hereditary right to be paid for that use. 



584. The land of religious corporations is let in the same manner as the crown lands. 

 That of towns is generally divided into very small lots of twelve or ten acres, and let to 

 the townsmen as gardens, or for growing potatoes and corn for their own consumption. 

 Almost every family of the middling and poorer classes in towns as well as in the 

 country has a small portion of land. Most of the towns and villages have large com- 

 mons, and the inhabitants have certain rights of grazing cows, &c. 



585. The occupiers of land may be divided into two classes, meyers and leibeigeners. 

 The first occupy from eighty to twenty acres, and pay a fixed corn or money rent, which 

 the landlord cannot alter, nor can he refuse to renew the lease on the death of the 

 occupier. The money rent paid by such farmers varies from seven to twelve shillings 

 per acre. The term leibeigener, signifies a slave, or a person who owns his own body 

 and no more. He also holds his land on fixed terms, independently of the will of his 

 lord. His conditions are a certain number of days' labor at the different seasons of 

 sowing, reaping, &c., bringing home his lord's fuel; supplying coach or cart horses when 

 wanted, and various other feudal services. The stock of the leibeigener is generally the 

 property of the landlord, who is obliged to make good all accidents or deaths in cattle, 

 and to supply the family with food when the crops fail. This wretched tenure the 

 governments of Hanover, Prussia, and Bavaria are endeavoring to mitigate, or do away 

 altogether ; and so much has already been done that the condition of the peasants is said 

 to be greatly superior to what it was a century back. 



586. The free landed pro2)erty of the kingdom of Hanover lies principally in Fries- 

 land and the marsh lands. There it is cultivated in large, middling, and small farms as 

 in England, and the agriculture is evidently superior to that of the other provinces. 



