Book I. AGRICULTURE IN GERMANY. 93 



the country without being a magistrate, or without holding some office, is looked on 

 as degrading. Hodgson met with only three instances of nobles cultivating their own 

 estates, and then they lived in towns. The farmers of these estates are bauers or 

 peasants, who hold from ten to eighty acres each, at old fixed rents and services long since 

 established, which the landlord has no power to alter. " It may be from this cause 

 that so few nobles reside in the country. They have in truth no land, but what is occu- 

 pied by other people. The use of these small portions of land on certain conditions, is 

 the property of the occupier, which he can sell, as the stipulated rent and services are the 

 property of the landlord. The bauer has a hereditary right to the use ; the landlord 

 a hereditary right to be paid for that use." 



595. The land of religious corporations is let in the same manner as the crown lands. 

 That of towns is generally divided into very small lots of twelve or ten acres, and let to 

 the townsmen as gardens, or for growing potatoes and corn for their own consumption. 

 Almost every family of the middling and poorer classes in towns, as well as in the country, 

 has a small portion of land. Most of the towns and villages have large commons, and 

 the inhabitants have certain rights of grazing cows, ^c. 



596. The occupiers of land may be divided into two classes, metayers and leibeigeners. 

 .The first occupy from eighty to twenty acres, and pay a fixed corn or money rent, which 

 the landlord cannot alter; nor can he refuse to renew the lease, on the death of the- 

 occupier. The money rent paid by such farmers varies from seven to twelve shillings 

 per acre. The term leibeigener signifies a slave, or a person who owns his own body 

 and no more. He also holds his land on fixed terms independently of the will of his 

 lord. His conditions are a certain number of days' labour at the different seasons of 

 sowing, reaping, &c., bringing home his lord's fuel, supplying coach or cart horses when 

 wanted, and various other feudal services. The stock of the leibeigener is generally the 

 property of the landlord, who is obliged to make good all accidents or deaths in cattle, 

 and to supply the family with food when the crops fail. This wretched tenure the 

 governments of Hanover, Prussia, and Bavaria are endeavouring to mitigate, or do away 

 altogether ; and so much has already been done that the condition of the peasants is said 

 to be greatly superior to what it was a century back. 



597. The free landed property of the kingdom of Hanover lies principally in Fries- 

 land and the marsh lands. There it is cultivated in large, middling, and small farms, as 

 in England, and the agriculture is evidently superior to that of the other provinces. 



598. The large farmers of Hanover have in general extensive rights of pasturage ; 

 keep large flocks of sheep, grow artificial grasses, turnips, and even fiorin ; and have 

 permanent pastures or meadows. Sometimes a brewery, distillery, or public house, is 

 united with the farm. 



599. The farm of Coldingen, within eight miles of Hanover, was visited by Hodgson. 

 It contained two thousand six hundred acres, with extensive rights of pasturage : it 

 belonged to the crown, and was rented by an amptman or magistrate. The soil was a 

 free brown loam, and partly in meadow, liable to be overflowed by a river. The rota- 

 tion on one part of tlie arable lands was, 1. drilled green crop; 2. wheat or rye; 

 3. clover ; 4. wheat or rye ; 5. barley or peas ; and 6. oats or rye. On another portion, 

 fallow, rape, beans, the cabbage turnip or kohl-rahi, flax, and oats were introduced. 

 Seven pair of horses and eight pair of oxen were kept as working cattle. No cattle 

 were fattened ; but a portion of the land was sublet for feeding cows 



600. Of sheep there were two thousand two hundred, of a cross between the Rhenish or Saxon breed 

 and the Merino. No attention was paid to the carcass, but only to the wool. The " shepherds were all 

 dressed in long white linen coats, and white linen smallclothes, and wore large hats cocked up behind, 

 and ornamented by a large steel buckle. They all looked respectable and clean. They were paid in pro- 

 portion to the success of the flock, and had thus a considerable interest in watching over its improve- 

 ment. They received a ninth of the profits, but also contributed on extraordinary occasions ; such as 

 buying oilcake for winter food, when it was necessary, and on buying new stock, a ninth of the expenses. 

 The head shepherd had two ninths of the profits." 



601. Of the workmen on this farm, some were paid in proportion to their labour. The threshers, for 

 example, were paid with the sixteenth part of what they threshed. Other labourers were hired by the 

 day, and they received about sevenpence. In harvest-time they may make eightpence. Some are paid 

 by the piece, and then receive at the rate of two shillings for cutting and binding an acre of corn. 



602. The farming of the cidtivators of free lands resembles that of England, and is 

 best exemplified on the Elbe, in the neighbourhood of Hamburg. A distinguishing 

 characteristic is, that the farm-houses are not collected in villages ; but each is built on 

 the ground its owner cultivates. " This," Hodgson observes, " is a most reasonable 

 plan, and marks a state of society which, in its early stages, was different from that of 

 the rest of Germany, when all the vassals crowded round the castle of their lord. It is 

 an emblem of security, and is of itself almost a proof of a different origin in the people, 

 and of an origin the same as our own. So far as I am acquainted, this mode is fol- 

 lowed only in Britain, and in Holland, on the sea-coast, from the Ems to the Elbe, to which 

 Holstein may be added, and the vale of Arno in Italy. It is now followed in America ; 

 and we may judge that this reasonable practice is the result of men thinking for them- 

 selves, and following their individual interest." {Travels, \o\,\, p, 247.) We may 



