AGRICULTURE OX THE RHI>NE. 35 



The lowland cultivator on small farms looks to his 

 rape-seed crop, with tobacco or flax, according as the soil 

 or his habits induce him to prefer the one to the other. 

 The large farmer is a stock-farmer, whose pastures furnish 

 cheese made in the Dutch or Limburg fashion, and 

 whose fat cattle find a ready sale in the manufacturing 

 district of Elberfeld, or in the cities of Diisseldorf and 

 Cologne. His fallow-crops are therefore mangel wurzel, 

 Swedish turnips, or carrots and cabbages, and the grains 

 from his distillery, with oil-cake, eke out his supply ot 

 fodder in the winter months. Land in the lowlands 

 is high in price. We were told of a small estate of 18 

 morgens, with a peasant's house and offices upon it, that 

 sold in 1845 for 20,000 dollars, or 3000/. It would be 

 a high valuation to estimate the buildings at 500/. ; so 

 that the land sold for 150/, per English acre. 



We endeavoured to give some idea of the position and 

 standing of the country gentleman on the Lower Rhine. 

 Our sketch was indeed a hasty and most imperfect one, 

 but the answer will probably be still less explicit and 

 satisfactory w^hen we are asked to describe what entitles 

 a large class of the population to be called peasants. 

 Peasant is a word that we have borrowed from the 

 French, and means countryman. The corresponding- 

 word in German is '' Bauer," which signifies a builder or 

 workman; and ^^ the bauer " is the man who works up 

 the soil for the general nourishment. A minuter in- 

 quiry shows, therefore, that " boor," a word used by us as 

 a term of reproach, is in reality a distinction expressing 

 the usefulness of agriculture as pre-eminent amongst the 

 industrious occupations. The "Bauern"' of Gei'many 

 have only of late been emancipated from the yoke under 



