3661 



EUROPEAN FARMING. 



doubled." No doubt about it. The same means, 

 too, would double the produce of the soil ia many 

 paits of this country. It is in drainiug the laud, and 

 ill growing more roots and leguminous plants, and 

 keeping more stock, that are to be the principal 

 means of improving American as well as European 

 agriculture. 



Of the Hungarian peasantry, Mr. L. says: 



" They are a fine, active, stj-ong, well-made race of 

 men. They have just been emancipated from serf- 

 dom by the present Emperor of Austria; ;iud being 

 now in a transition state, will no doubt soon raise 

 themselves in the moral scale, as far as the circum- 

 stances of their country will permit. They are in a 

 shocking state of poverty — working bare-footed and 

 bare-legged, with only coarse caavass shirts and 

 trowsers (if they are worthy of the name). They are 

 just a wide petticoat cut up the middle, and each 

 side sewed up to form legs. The n'aistband is the 

 same as that of a petticoat. Their coats are .<<heep 

 skins, with the v,-oo!ly side out, dyed black. It is 

 evident these people feel acutely the degraded posi- 

 tion they have risen from." 



It appears to be bad enough now, fro?Ti the above 

 account. 



" From Zolnok," says Mr. Love, " I started for 

 Tokay, by steamboat, up the river Tessis. The dis- 

 tance, as the bird flies, is under 150 miles English: 

 but by this circuitous, muddy river, it is about 400 

 miles. Both its banks are but little above the water, 

 and for ten miles on the west side, and nearly fifty on 

 the east side, more than two-thirds o( the land is" laid 

 under water for several months, after the thawing of 

 the snow on the Carpathians, and the breaking up of 

 the ice in the lowland morasses and streams. When 

 these floods subside, a pestilential vapor rises up, 

 spreading fever and ague among the towns and villa- 

 ges throughout these low lands, thus weakening and 

 thinning the population of the country. 



" The steamboat was English built. We were two 

 days and two nights in getting up to Tokay. Many 

 of "the towns we nearly sailed around, at a distance 

 of some miles from them. The land frequently, in 

 these sort of peninsulas or links, is the highest above 

 flood water mark. Not much of this country is cul- 

 tivated, except about the towns and villages, which 

 are few and far between. In the low country, the 

 system of farming is very rude indeed; but the land 

 is rich and fertile, where it is sufficiently above water- 

 mark, and the crops consequently good, and in masy 

 cases abundant. The great wealth of this country 

 consists in large herds of cattle, horses, pigs, and 

 flocks of sheep. Where the land is high and dry, the 

 cattle are grazed in herds of the same age and sex. 

 If these cattle were well selected for a few genera- 

 tions, there is no doubt that they would be one of 

 the best breeds in the world. Great numbers of them 

 are excellent handlers — they are deep in the rib, wide 

 in the back, deep and broad in the thighs, deep but 

 rather narrow in the breast; their liead and horns are 

 in many cases beautiful ; the worst fault they have is 

 flatness in the rib. They are the finest worMng oien 



in the world; always yoked so as to push with the 

 forehead, so that the work in no way disfigures them 

 as our system of yokes and collars does. 



'■ The swine are fattened in great numbers, after the 

 subsiding of the floods, upon fish and frogs, which 

 swarm the shallow pools in these marshes; but their 

 flesh is not fit for food, therefore the whole carcass is 

 rjielted down, and the fat mixed with beef and mutton 

 suet, to make tallow; the dried flesh is given to other 

 young pigs that are growing. Thus it gets double 

 refined. Large quantities of pigs are also fattened 

 in the oak forests, upon acorns. 



" Hungary supplies the greater part of Austria 

 with beef, mutton, pork, and horses. The herbage 

 on the land which is not liable to flood, is of the 

 finest description; in fact, I have no doubt that this 

 whole plain, exceeding 21,000,000 of acres in extent, 

 could not be excelled in fertility by any land in the 

 world, if properly drained and cultivated. 



The farm of Mr. Smallboxes, near Odenliurg, in 

 Hungary, consulting agent to Piince Esteehazt, is 

 " a model of what can be done by English ingenuity, 

 industry, and perseverance." It contains upwards of 

 1200 acres English, all in tillage. Mr. S. has like- 

 wise extensive rights of pasturage upon the neighbor- 

 ing plains. He grows about 450 acres of wheat, 150 

 of barley, 150 of Indian corn, which he cuts green 

 for fattening cattle and feeding his farm horses and 

 oxen; 150 acres of tares, which are partly eaten in 

 the houses by the fattening cattle and teams, and the 

 rest is eaten on the land by sheep, which have a lib- 

 eral allowance of corn or oil-cake at the same time. 

 This crop is immediately followed by one of turnips. 

 He has also 150 acres of mangel wurzel, and 150 of 

 clover, with about 50 acres of lucerne. The rotation 

 runs thus : Wheat after clover, tares followed by 

 turnips, barley, Indian corn sown thick for soiling, 

 wheat, mangel wurzel, wheat, clover. 



Mr. Love says: 



" The crops on all those fields which have been fal- 

 lowed with roots are excellent, notwithstanding the 

 season has been an unusually dry one, which has 

 greatly reduced the usual bulk of straw, but the ears 

 (on the land in good condition) were beautifully 

 filled with fully developed grain. When I was there, 

 he was having his clover mown for hay. It was the 

 heaviest and longest crop of clover it has ever been 

 my lot to see — about a yard high, and as thick as it 

 could grow." [We have seen much heavier crops of 

 clover in AVestern New York than we ever did in 

 England.] "He had upwards of 100 head of large 

 Hungarian cattle up feeding upon tares. They were 

 to bo finished upon Indian corn cut green, which is 

 very fattening food. He had also 30 working oxen, 

 30 horses, and a large flock of sheep, which are folded 

 on the same land forty-eight hours, eating mown 

 tares and cake or corn mixed with a little chaff. 

 Directly the sheep are oft", the land is plowed, pulver- 

 ized, manured, and sown with turnips. Thus the field 

 is got over as fast as the tares are consumed." 



