398 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



body appears, the naming of any distinctive pledge value 

 having been suppressed.^ The whole arrangement was an 

 eirenicon offered by Frederick the Great to the landed gentry 

 of his at that time newly conquered province of Silesia, as 

 one of the means resorted to to gain them over to fealty 

 to himself, as a sequel to one of the most decisive chapters 

 in the history of what the Hessian historian, Professor 

 Feder, has uncomplimentarily styled " The History of 

 Brandenburg Usurpation." Another such measure brought 

 into requisition at the time was the wholesale creation of 

 "Counts." The rank of "Count" was readily conferred 

 upon landed proprietors in Silesia, who contributed a certain 

 number of bullocks to the Prussian military Commissariat 

 for conquering their country. These gentlemen came for 

 a time to be known a.s Ochsengraf en " (bullock counts). As 

 originally conceived, the plan on which a landschaft was 

 organised meant compulsory liability for every landed pro- 

 prietor in the province, whether he borrowed money from 

 the landschaft or not, for the Uabilities of the landschaft. 

 \Vhile I had my property in the province, although I had 

 not borrowed a penny from the landschaft, I was at law so 

 liable. However, everybody knew the affairs of the land- 

 schaft to be so securely conducted that such nominal liability 

 really amounted to nothing at all. In truth the landschaft 

 then had a substantial balance of assets to its credit. The 

 right of borrowing was restricted to owners of " knights' " 

 properties — ritterguter, as they were then still called. Experi- 

 ence has shown that none of these restrictions and excessive 

 engagements are necessary, Landschaften are now formed 

 for the benefit of landed proprieters of all sorts, down to 

 the very smallest, and with the restriction of liability to 

 actual borrowers only. Indeed, in one case a form of 

 engagement has been devised under which liability has 

 become strictly limited. However, the antiquated, stately, 

 but rather ponderous machinery, rendered effective by pri- 



^ I have explained all this and other pertinent matters in the 

 special chapter on " Mortgage Credit " in my book " Co-operative 

 Banking: Its Principles and its Practice," published by Messrs. 

 P. S. King & Son, London, 1907. 



