Book I. AGRICULTURE IN GERMANY. 91 



573. The implements of husbandry are quite of as low a description as the working 

 cattle. The ploughs are ill-constructed, with very little iron on them. The harrows are 

 made of wood, without any iron, even for the tines or teeth. The waggons are mere 

 planks, laid on the frame loose, and resting against upright stakes fixed into its sides. 

 The cattle are attached to these implements by ropes, without leather in any part of the 

 harness. The use of the roller is scarcely known, and the clods, in preparing the fallow- 

 ground, are commonly broken to pieces by hand with wooden mallets. In sowing, the 

 seed is carried in the apron or the skirts of the frock of the man who scatters it on the 

 ground. (Ibid.) 



574. The produce of the soil, whether in corn or cattle, is of an inferior quality, and 

 bears a low money price. The scale of living of all classes, is influenced by this state of 

 things. The working classes, including both those who woi'k for daily wages", and those 

 who cultivate their own little portions of land, live in dwellings provided with few con- 

 veniences, on the lowest and coarsest food ; potatoes, rye, and buckwheat form their chief, 

 and frequently their only, food ; linen, from flax of their own growth, and cloth from 

 wool spun by their own hands, both coarse, and both worn as long as they will hold 

 together, furnish their dress ; whilst an earthen pot that will bear fire, forms one of the 

 most valuable articles of their furniture. (Ibid.) 



575. The improvement of the agriculture of Prussia is ardently desired by the present 

 government, and in consequence, about twenty-four years ago, the Agricultural Institution 

 of Moegelin on the Oder, conducted by the late Von Thaer, justly celebrated in Ger- 

 many as an agricultural writer, was founded. This institution was visited by Jacob 

 in 1819 ; and from his Travels we shall give a short account of it. 



576. The Agricultural Institution of Moegelin is situated in the country or march of Brandenburg, about 

 forty-five miles from Berlin. The chief professor, Von Thaer, was formerly a medical practitioner at 

 Celle, near Luneburg, in the kingdom of Hanover ; and had distinguished himself by the translation 

 of various agricultural works from the French and English, and by editing a Magazine of Rural 

 Economy. About 1804, the King of Prussia invited him to settle in his dominions, and gave him the 

 estate of Moegelin to improve and manage as a pattern farm. 



577. This estate consists of 1200 acres. Thaer began by erecting extensive buildings for himself, three 

 profess6rs, a variety of tradesmen, the requisite agricultural buildings, and a distillery. The three pro- 

 fessors are, one for mathematics, chemistry, and geology ; one for veterinary knowledge ; and a third for 

 botany and the use of the different vegetable productions in the Materia Medica, as well as for 

 entomology. Besides these, an experienced agriculturist is engaged, whose office it is to point out to 

 the pupils the mode of applying the sciences to the practical business of husbandry. The course com- 

 mences in September. During the winter months, the time is occupied in mathematics, and the first six 

 books of Euclid are studied ; and in the summer, the geometrical knowledge is practically applied to the 

 measurement of land, timber, buildings, and other objects. The first principles of chemistry are 

 unfolded. By a good but economical apparatus, various experiments are made, both on a large and small 

 scale. For the larger experiments, the brew-house and still-house with their respective fixtures are 

 found highly useful. 



578. Much attention is paid to the analysation of various soils, and the different kinds, with the 

 relative quantity of their component parts, are arranged with great order and regularity. The classifica- 

 tion is made with neatness, by having the specimens of soil arranged in order, and distinguished by 

 different colours. Thus, for instance, if the basis of the soil is sandy, the glass has a cover of yellow 

 paper ; if the next predominating earth is calcareous, the glass has a white ticket on its side ; if it is 

 red clay, it has a red ticket ; if blue clay, a blue one. Over these tickets, others, of a smaller size, 

 indicate by their colour the third greatest quantity of the particular substance contained in the soil. This 

 matter may appear to many more ingenious than useful, and savouring too much of the German habit of 

 generalising. The classification of Von Thaer is, however, as much adopted, and as commonly used on 

 the large estates in Germany, where exact statistical accounts are kept, as the classification of Linnsus in 

 natural history is throughout the civilised world. 



579. There is a large botanic garden, arranged on the system of the Swedish naturalist, kept in 

 excellent order, with all the plants labelled, and the Latin as well as German names. A herbarium, 

 with a good collection of dried plants which is constantly increasing, is open to the examination of the 

 pupils, as well as skeletons of the different animals, and casts of their several parts, which must be of 

 great use in veterinary pursuits. Models of agricultural implements, especially of ploughs, are preserved 

 in a museum, which is stored as well with such as are common in Germany, as with those used in 

 England, or other countries. 



580. The various implements used on the farm are all made by smiths, wheelers, and carpenters, 

 residing round the institution ; the workshops are open to the pupils, and they are encouraged by 

 attentive inspection, to become masters of the more minute branches of the economy of an estate. 



581. The sum paid by each pupil is four hundred rix-doUars annually, besides which they provide their 

 own beds and breakfasts. In this country, such an expense precludes the admission of all but youths of 

 good fortune. Each has a separate apartment. They are very well behaved young men, and their 

 conduct to each other, and to the professors, was polite, even to punctilio. 



582. Jacob's opinion of this institution is, that an attempt is made to crowd too much instruction into 

 too short a compass, for many of the pupils spend but one year in the institution ; and thus only the 

 foundation, and that a very slight one, can be laid in so short a space of time. It is, however, to be 

 presumed, that the young men come here prepared with a considerable previous knowledge, as they are 

 mostly between the ages of twenty and twenty-four, and some few appeared to be still older. 



585. The farm at Moegelin was examined by Jacob in the autumn. The soil is light and sandy, and 

 the climate cold. The wheat was put in the ground with a drill of Thaer's invention, which sows and 

 covers nine rows at once, and is drawn by two horses. The saving of seed Thaer considers the only 

 circumstance which makes drilling preferable to sowing broad-cast, as far as respects wheat, rye, barley, 

 and oats. The average produce of wheat is sixteen bushels per acre : not much is sown in Prussia, as 

 rye is the bread corn of that country ; it produces, with Thaer, twenty-two bushels and a half to the 

 acre. The usual rotation of crops is, potatoes or peas, rye, clover, and wheat. Winter tares are killed 

 by the frost, and the summer species come to nothing, owing to the dry soil and drought. The spurry 

 (Spergula) is therefore grown for the winter food of sheep : it is sown on the stubbles immediately after 

 harvest, and in six weeks furnishes an herbage of which the sheep are very fond, and which is said to be 

 very nutritious. Potatoes are a favourite crop ; and the small-tubered and rather glutinous ill-flavoured 

 sort common in France and Germany is preferred, as containing more starch in proportion to bulk, than 

 the large kinds, Thaer maintains that, beyond a certain size, the increase of the potato is only water and 



