Book I. 



AGRICULTURE IN GERMANY. 



97 



has also a weekly court. It consists of the fiscal or lawyer, the bailiff, the forest master, 

 the engineer, the treasurer, foremen and sub-foremen, police officers to guard jmsoners and 

 keep them at work, forest keeper, rangers, and a gaoler. The estates of Prince Ester- 

 hazy, which are the largest in Europe ; of Graf Festetits, and Prince Ballhyani, are 

 examples of this mode of government and culture ; of which it may be observed, that, like 

 many German plans, it is very accurate and systematic, but very unproductive of profit. 



610. The crown has immense tracts of lands, especially in Gallicia ; and, independ- 

 ently of these, the personal estates of the reigning family amount to upwards of 

 100,000/. sterling a year, all of which are farmed by stewards. In the Moravian, Bo- 

 hemian, and Austrian districts, however, where the estates are not so large as in Hun- 

 gary, and the people rather in better circumstances as to property and knowledge, they 

 are frequently farmed on the meyer system. 



611. The Austrian dominions, like the rest of Germany, are unenclosed, with the 

 usual exceptions ; the farm-houses and cottages are usually built of wood, and thickly 

 covered with thatch or with shingles. The cottages are remarkably uniform in Hun- 

 gary, and village scenery there, according to Dr. Bright, must be the dullest in Europe. 

 Not less so is their cultivated plains : speaking of a plain near Presburg, he says, 

 " The peasants were employed in ploughing 7 1 

 the land, and my driver {Jig. 71.) cheered the 

 way by a Sclavonian song. But let no one 

 be induced, by these expressions, to figure to 

 his imagination a scene of rural delight. The 

 plain is unenlivened by trees, unintersected by 

 hedges, and thinly inhabited by human beings; 

 a waste of arable land, badly cultivated, and 

 yielding imperfect crops to proprietors, who are scarcely conscious of the extent of 

 territory they possess. It is for some branch of the families of Esterhazy or Palfy, known 

 to them only by name, that the Sclavonian peasants who inhabit these regions are em- 

 ployed. Their appearance bespeaks no fostering care from the superior, no independent 

 respect, yielded with free satisfaction from the inferior. It is easy to perceive that all sti- 

 mulus to invention, all incitement to extraordinary exertion, is wanting. No one peasant 

 has proceeded in the arts of life and civilisation a step farther than his neighbor. When 

 you have seen one, you have seen all. From the same little hat, covered with oil, falls 

 the same matted long black hair, negligently plaited, or tied in knots ; and over the same 

 dirty jacket and trowsers is wrapped on each a cloak of coarse woollen cloth, or sheep- 

 skin still retaining its wool. Whether it be winter or summer, week-day or sabbath, 

 the Sclavonian of this district never lays aside his cloak, or is seen but in heavy boots. 



612. Their instruments of agriculture [fig. 72.) are throughout the same; and in all 

 their habitations is observed a perfect uniformity of design. A wide, muddy road separates 

 two rows of cottages, 

 which constitute a vil- 

 lage. From amongst 

 them, there is no possi- 

 bility of selecting the best 

 or the worst; they are 

 absolutely uniform. In 

 some villages the cottages 

 present their ends ; in _^__^ 

 others, their sides to the *x^^^^' 

 road ; but there is sel- .^r^^ 

 dom this variety in the 

 same village. The in- 

 terior of the cottage is in 

 general divided into three small rooms on the ground floor, and a little space in the roof 

 destined for lumber. The roof is commonly covered with a very thick thatch ; the walls 

 are white-washed, and pierced towards the road by two small windows. The cottages 

 are usually placed a few yards distant from each other. The intervening space, defended 

 by a rail and gate, or a hedge of wicker-work towards the road, forms the farm-yard, 

 which runs back some way, and contains a shed or outhouse for the cattle. Such is the 

 outward appearance of the peasant and his habitation. The door opens in the side 



.of the house into the middle room, or kitchen, in which is an oven, constructed of clay, 

 well calculated for baking bread, and various implements for household purposes, which 

 generally occupy this apartment fully. On each side of the room is a door, communicating 

 on one hand with the family dormitory, in which are the two windows that look into tlie road. 

 This chamber is usually small, but well arranged ; the beds in good order, piled upon each 

 other, to be spread out on the floor at night; and the walls covered with a multiplicity of 

 pictures and images of our Saviour, together with dishes, plates, and vessels of coarse 

 earthenware. The other door from the kitchen leads to the store-room, the repository of 

 the greater part of the peasant's riches, consisting of bass of grain of various kinds, both 



