ECONOMY OF FARMING. 3 



consequence of too scanty a supply of hay, and for which the farmer had neglected 

 to provide substitutes. — Tr.] 



2. The labor of men is required as well in the rearing of animals, 

 as in the cultivation of plants. Without the aid of beasts of labor we 

 can indeed manage the garden, but not the cultivation of the field ; and 

 so too without a sufficiency of manure, the culture of plants will not 

 repay the labor bestowed on them. 



3. The doctrine of the outer Household, therefore, is divided into two 

 parts ; the first of which shows the amount of animal powers, the num- 

 ber of laboring men and beasts, required for the management of the 

 household [or farming operations ;] the second^ the quantity of manure 

 needed in agriculture, and how it may be provided at the least cost, and 

 employed to the greatest advantage. 



A. — OF LABOR. 



1. Land-Husbandry requires the labor both of men and beasts ; but in 

 a variety of circumstances, they will repay only a definite amount of 

 labor ; hence we must first of ail know what men and beasts will ac- 

 complish in a given space of time, before we fix on any particular mode 

 of farming. 



2. Where the land is cheap, but labor is dear, an extensive method is 

 most profitable •, where the reverse is the case, and land is dear, but labor 

 cheap, it is best to practise the intensive mode of carrying on business. 



The extensive mode of farming is that where the product depends more on the 

 extent of land ; the intensive on the degree of labor. The Dreifelderwirthschaft 

 and the Egartenwirthschaft are examples of tlie extensive mode ; the Wechsel- 

 wirthschaft, without fallow and meadow, is one of the intensive method. The in- 

 crease of production is always connected with the increase of labor ; only the degree 

 of increased production reaches to a certain height in an inverse ratio with the in- 

 crease of labor. To determine the height to which the powers and means of aid 

 of husbandry must reach, so as to derive the greatest profit from the increase of the 

 product in given c^cumstances, is the most important acquisition for the calculating 

 land-holder. 



[The terms Dreifeldenoirthschaft, Egartenwirthschaft, and Wechselwirthschaft are 

 applied to different methods of carrying on farming, common in Germany. The 

 Dreifelderwirthschaft, or the three-field or the Triennial system, as it is sometimes 

 termed, is where the land is divided into three parts, and one part is left fallow, one 

 part cultivated with winter-grain, and the remaining one with summer-grain. (See 

 further on, B. 6. 24.) 



The Egartenwirthschaft or, Koppelwirthschaft is where the field is left to its wild, 

 natural growth of grass, for two or more years, and is used as meadow or for graz- 

 ing. (See B. 6, 7, 27.) It is also sometimes called Drischfelder, or Dreeshweiden. 

 The Wechselwirthschaft is the system of the rotation or succession of crops. (B. 6, 

 7. 10.) As the terms are convenient for use, Avith this explanation they will be used 

 hereafter without translation. 



On the subject of the extensive and intensive modes of husbandry,THAER in Vol. I. p. 

 63, remarks ; — " This relation of the price of labor to the price of the ground and soil, 

 lies at the foundation of many different systems of agriculture. In their extremes we 

 may call these the extensive and the intensive. Where the soil is cheap but labor is 

 dear, there a person must seek to produce a certain amount of products, on a larger 

 extent, but with the least possible labor. Where, on the contrary, the price of the 

 soil is high, but labor is to be had in sufficient quantity, and at an easy price, there 

 one must endeavor to raise on a less extent of ground, the same value in products — 

 as this is always possible — by increased employment of labor. Whoever wishes to 

 employ a fixed capital in agriculture, must in the former of these cases, purchase a 



