148 



AUSTRIA. 



.\intria. 



Dress and 

 Mature. 



Produe. 

 tions. 



Ajjricul- 

 >wrc. 



musical parties. They have no amusements which, 

 like those of the British, cricket, golf, quoits, and 

 wrestling, can be properly denominated athletic ; nor 

 do even their boys try their courage and strength by 

 violent, yet useful competitions, with which 

 our youth are early initiated into the struggles and dif- 

 ficulties of life. A stranger is much struck with the 

 placid and quiescent aspect of the German boys in 

 general, but still more so with that of the Austrian, 

 who are h-althy, well led, and evidently happy, al- 

 though that happiness bears no resemblance witli the 

 loud, and sometimes mischievous and tempestuous, 

 mirth of the Britain. 



The average Austrian stature of men is .\ feet 7\ 

 inches, and of women .5 feet 3 inches English mea- 

 sure ; but many instances of great stature occur, 

 especially in the lower and fertile districts of the pro- 

 vince. Their dress has nothing particular in it. 

 We found no traces of the characteristic bigotry and 

 immorality with which some persons have, in other 

 Encyclopedias, reproached this faithful and gallant 

 nation : on the contrary, we can, from experience 

 attest, that such reproaches are ill founded and ca- 

 lumnious. Englishmen ought, of all other travellers, 

 to be the last to take up and circulate reports inju- 

 rious to a country in which they are particularly 

 well received; and it is but bare justice to the Aus- 

 trians to say, that, in point of religious toleration, of 

 good order, humanity, honesty, and whatever consti- 

 tutes the public and private morality of a people, 

 they are excelled perhaps by none op the continent 

 of Europe. 



Few countries are more productive than Austria in 

 proportion to her extent, whether we refer to the 

 animal, the vegetable, or the mineral kingdoms. Her 

 breeds of horses, mules, asses, cattle, sheep, goats, 

 hogs, and of all the common European domesticated 

 animals, as well as of game and wild fowls, are ac- 

 knowledged to be among the best in Germany. In 

 1798, there were 97,684 horses, and 1 12,162 head of 

 cattle in Lower Austria, and probably one-third of 

 those numbers in Upper Austria, and that too with- 

 out reckoning the cattle destined for tljgpiimmbles of 

 Vienna, which last amount to nearly 80,000 at an 

 average yearly, and 51,000 calve3. (See Vienna.) 

 Much attention has been paid since the reign of 

 Joseph II. to the breed of horses in Austria, by in- 

 troducing English^ Mecklenburgh, and the best 

 Turkish stallions, and by encouraging English grooms 

 to settle in the country. Nothing very particular, 

 however, can be said in favour of their management 

 of live stock ; and productive as the province is, they 

 must long continue to import considerable'quantities 

 from the adjoining provinces of Hungary, Bohemia, 

 and Moravia, in order to meet the constantly increa- 

 sing demands of Vienna. > The same may be said of 

 the other productions of the province, such as wood, 

 wine, corn, fruit, oil, wool, iron, lime, &c. excepting 

 the article of salt, which Upper Austria produces in 

 quantities, not only adequate to the supply of the 

 province and metropolis, but also sufficient to afford 

 a considerable surplus for exportation.. 



Austria, when compared with the mass of the con- 

 tinental provinces of northern Europe, may fairly be 

 stiled a well managed and rich agricultural country. 



On entering it, either from Hungary on the east, or Austria. 

 from Bavaria on the west, we find a striking contrast ' v~~ 

 in its favour. The country is pretty well and regu- 

 larly enclosed, especially Upper Austria ; a sort of 

 rotation of white and green crops is observed ; and the 

 raising and harvesting of hay are perfectly well un- 

 derstood. Draining k not, indeed, scientifically prac- 

 tised, but embankments against lakes and rivers are 

 very skilfully constructed, and kept in admirable con- 

 dition all over the province. Irrigation is well ma- 

 naged, and carried on to a great extent, being found 

 of vast advantage in a country which has abundance 

 of running water, and of which the soil is for the 

 most part rather light and gravelly than otherwise. 

 The roads are good, and, upon the whole, well ma- Roads, 

 naged, though not always well engineered when first 

 made, being, as in many parts of England, carried 

 over the summits of hills and eminences that might 

 have easily been avoided; and in some parts of the 

 level country, where land is valuable, too narrow in 

 proportion to the great resort upon them. With . 

 gard to these hills, and all other dangerous or difficult 

 parts of the road, the Austrian police shews great 

 tenderness and humane attention to the people who 

 pass by them. A ticket upon a tall pole, somewhat 

 like a road-index, is placed in a conspicuous station 

 by the road side, with the figure of a man crushed 

 to death painted upon it, over whom a wheel lias 

 passed, while he was in the act of fastening a drag- 

 chain to his cart or waggon ; intimating, the danger- 

 ous consequences of neglecting that precaution till 

 the horses were so pushed by the weight of their 

 draught, that they could not command themselves. 

 A fine to a considerable amount is also named on the 

 same ticket, to bc-paid by every driver of a loaded 

 carriage of whatsoever description, who shall not 

 fasten his drag-chain to such carriage at the very 

 place where the ticket is hung up. A reward is of- 

 fered to informers ; so that serious accidents, so fre- 

 quent in Northern Germany, and other parts of Eu- 

 rope, very rarely happen in Austria, even on its 

 steepest roads. The crops commonly cultivated are Crops, 

 wheat, (in no very considerable quantities) barley, 

 oats, rye, pease, beans, potatoes, saffron, mustard, 

 hemp, flax, wood, and a few 6pecies of grasses, as 

 clovers, vetches, tares, &c. In comparison with 

 Northern Germany, (excepting some parts of Meck- 

 lenburgh and Holstein,) the crops are heavy and 

 productive; but if compared with the best mali3ged 

 counties of England and Scotland, they are by no 

 means considerable in proportion to the fertility of 

 the soil. Six bolls, (Linlithgow measure,) or three 

 quarters of wheat, are reckoned a good crop per acre, 

 and four bolls of barley or oats rather exceed the 

 common average. The Austrian peasant is not a 

 tenant, in our sense of the word, but a feuar ; he has 

 his land very cheap, and calculates not upon what a cer- 

 tain quantity of seed corn will yield him. Hence he 

 sows very sparingly, perhaps six or seven pecks, or two 

 and a half bushels per acre, and is perfectly content- 

 ed if he has six or seven returns from his seed. He 

 ploughs to the depth of two, or at most three inches, 

 and manages his ground precisely as his forefathers 

 did in the days of Charles V., or of Rudolf of Habs- 

 burg. A great branch of husbandry in the country 



