THE BIRTH OF AGRICULTURE 7 



by the Germans at the close of the Franco-Prussian war, was 

 practically paid witliout apparent effort or sacrifice out of tlie 

 cujricultural wealth (jf the country. 



German Agriculture 



In Germany, the many edicts and laws which were passed 

 by the German legislators at the beginning of the last century, 

 with the object of freeing the peasantry from those restrictions 

 which interfered with the development of universal agriculture 

 on a lirm, stable basis, indicate with what importance those 

 dead and gone statesmen regarded the land industry. It 

 would serve no purpose here to dwell at length on these 

 measures of reform, as numerous writers have already dealt 

 very liberally with the subject. The establishment of a 

 national agricultural system on a basis that would be equitable 

 to the lords of the soil, and encouraging and even stimulating 

 to peasant proprietors, were the chief factors employed in the 

 circumstances, and the fact that both the landed nobility and 

 the cultivating peasant pro})rietors have been benefited to an 

 enormous extent by the arrangement, amply vindicates the 

 legislative enactments of a hundred years ago. 



Germany to-day possesses one of the finest agricultural 

 systems in the civilised world. She is practically self-sup- 

 porting in respect to her food ; she employs and supports nearly 

 20,000,000 of her people on her agricultural industry alone ; 

 her agricultural wealth is prodigious, while she has found that 

 her splendid land industry, instead of being a hindrance to the 

 progressive development of her manufacturing industries, offers 

 them, on the contrary, a powerful stimulus, owing to the 

 enormous purchasing power of 20,000,000 of prosperous agri- 

 culturists in the midst of a thriving manufacturing country. 

 But, here again, her statesmen's fostering care of the great 

 national industry and their wonderful prescience is noticeable. 

 When Bismarck saw that the welding of the many German 

 States into a great homogeneous Empire must inevitably result 

 in the rapid development of manufactures, and the subsequent 

 physical deterioration of a town-bred and town-employed 

 population, with possibly a decrease in the biith and an increase 

 in the death rates, he steadfastly refused to permit the Father- 

 land to be dominated by manufacturing industries. He saw 

 what had happened to England, and while not in any sense 

 cnecking the natural growth of town industries, he directly and 

 indirectly fostered and encouraged the rural industries so as to 

 conserve, among other tldugs, the physical health of the people, 

 which he rightly regarded as a national asset of the first 

 importance. 



