SECRETARY'S REPORT. 349 



proprietor, he liad to pay in kind one-ninth of the produce, and 

 fifty-two days of labor, with a team of horses or oxen, or one 

 hundred and four days' work without a team, and that secured 

 to him an acre and a half, just round his rude cottage, for his 

 own use, and the right to pasturage in common, with sufficient 

 wood for fuel. He was liable for all the government claims for 

 taxes on the land also, which he* had to pay, and a quit rent of 

 one florin for his house. This, with slight local variations, was 

 the almost universal tenure of land throughout the country. 



It is not at all suprising, therefore, that agriculture was in a 

 very primitive state. Why should people who had not, and 

 could not hope to have, any permanent ownership or interest in 

 the soil, exert themselves to bring out its productive powers ? 

 And, on the other hand, how could the large proprietor devote 

 that careful attention to details sufficient to develop the 

 resources of fifty or a hundred thousand acres ? It is evident, 

 however, even on a casual inspection, that much of the land is 

 of great natural fertility, and that it only needs proper culti- 

 vation to make Hungary one of the finest agricultural countries 

 on the continent. 



But the abolition of the peasant tenure of land, in 1849, has 

 already had its effect upon the agriculture of the country. The 

 land owner has now to pay for the labor on his farm, and it has 

 become an object to economize bj the introduction of improved 

 implements. Still, changes take place slowly in a rural popu- 

 lation, especially in Europe, and the implements in most com- 

 mon use are but very few in variety, and, for the most part, of the 

 rudest description. It is by no means uncommon to see the 

 ligiit lauds, especially in the more southern provinces, cultivated 

 by a harrow only made of black thorn bushes and tied to the 

 tails of the small horses which are driven back and forth. This 

 has the effect to scarify the surface, when the wheat or other 

 crop is sown broadcast ; and, if it needs weeding, it is done by 

 "women and children, with no other pay than the weeds, which 

 they want for the pigs. 



The horses I have already spoken of as rather a small and ill- 

 looking race generally, but whether that is due to the use of the 

 English stallions which have been pretty extensively introduced 

 into this part of the continent and crossed with the common 

 stock of the country, or to bad and insufficient feeding when 



