AGKICULTURE O^'^ THE RHINE. 23 



cal on the score of continental farming, should first care- 

 fully weigh the circumstances of the country and the 

 state of the market, before they venture an opinion as to 

 what the cultivation ought to produce. Mr. Jacobs, 

 and all travellers who have taken pains on this point, have 

 found the production of Germany very small. Our in- 

 quiries confirm this fact. We find it, however, natural, 

 and do not believe that with the present population, and 

 the restrictions on exportation, it could well be otherwise. 

 Barley and seeds are here exportable products, their 

 value is fixed by the Dutch and London prices, as the 

 value of flax, since the successful exertions of Messrs. 

 Marshall, is now fixed at Leeds. In the same manner 

 we find tobacco and wool sold at the rates cui-rent in the 

 general market of Europe. The advantage accruing to 

 the Rhenish farmer from the recent improved means of 

 travelling, consists in the bringing these markets nearer 

 to him. Had no restrictions been anywhere imposed on 

 the sale of grain, the agriculture of the Rhenish provinces 

 which lie contiguous to the sterile part of Champagne in 

 France, to Belgium, and to Holland, all corn-importing 

 countries, would doubtless have early taken a direction 

 that would have afiforded grain for exportation. Even 

 then, however, as competition with the fertile districts of 

 the East of Europe would have remained, grain would in 

 all probability not have been forced at the cost of under- 

 draining, as in England. A greater share of general pro- 

 sperity would have pervaded these districts than now pre- 

 vails under the fasiiion of corn prohibitions ; and butcher's 

 meat being more generally saleable, would have favoured 

 the holding of large stocks of cattle, and would have thus 

 encouraged high manuring. 



