424 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



lies too high up to lend itself readily to such process. But 

 it is at present precisely in the high " moors " — the word 

 " moor " standing in German for our peat bog— that in 

 Germany most work is being done. And that is because 

 it has been discovered that on such moors the peat does 

 not require to be removed at all, nor to be mixed with the 

 underlying sand, but that, after simply draining, it may 

 with great advantage be at once ploughed up and placed 

 under crops. Such high-lying bog wants as a rule to be 

 rather differently treated from low. There is, of course, 

 bog and bog. Low moor has as a rule more or less mineral 

 constituents, including lime, which form a valuable asset 

 for cultivation. High bog is generally poor in mineral 

 salts and lime, and requires to be manured accordingly. 

 But that may easily be managed. Apart from this, of 

 course, bog has to be dealt with according to its ripeness, 

 that is, the degree of decomposition of its vegetable matter. 

 The reclamation of bogland — and, in addition, of those 

 extensive and highly fertile " brooks," as we call them in 

 Sussex, corresponding to the German word " bruch," that 

 is, marshes produced by the natural warping process by 

 rivers (in Germany the Oder, Warthe, Netze, and others) — 

 is in Prussia a long-estabhshed and cherished tradition, 

 dating back to the days of Frederick the Great, or really, 

 as a small beginning, to the reign of his father. However, 

 Frederick the Great — who in agreement with Aristotle pro- 

 nounced Agriculture " the first of all arts," and declared 

 that he would hold the man who made two blades of grass 

 grow vx^here only one had grown before in higher esteem 

 than the best general or the most adroit statesman — was 

 the real father of the pohcy, and carried it out with creditable 

 zeal and perseverance. Had his successors — up to the 

 present one, who has once more taken up his ancestor's 

 hobby, as we have seen, for special reasons — continued on 

 the same paths, there would now not be a square foot of 

 bog or " brook " left unreclaimed in the monarchy, and 

 in the opinion of Herr von Wangenheim Germany would 

 be able to nourish another 30,000,000 people " with home- 

 grown meat." Frederick the Great felt so strongly upon 



