46 AGRICULTURE ON THI-: RHINE. 



would have induced many to turn their attention to other 

 modes of obtaining their living, if the land had not thus 

 been given as a bribe to continue in their comfortless 

 condition, Germany with its diminutive holdings of 

 land is certainly better off than Ireland would be were 

 *' fixity of tenure " to sanctify the holding of a potato- 

 garden. But the principle is the same ; setting aside 

 all questions relative to security of property, it can do no 

 good to devise expedients for bolstering up and preserv- 

 ing antiquated forms whose insufficiency occasions a pres- 

 sure. Relief must be sought, where population presses, 

 in an extension of the field of industry, as has been done 

 in this part of Westphalia. The present state of hold- 

 ings in the county of Mark and the adjoining districts has 

 formed itself under the double influence of a rich pro- 

 prietary and of growing industrial activity. The largest 

 landowners were, as has been said, the clerical founda- 

 tions. Their property was better defined than that of 

 lay lords, for none could be alienated. In a country 

 suited to grain cultivation it was soon discovered that a 

 certain area of ground could be better, that is to say, more 

 economically cultivated, than too small divisions ot 

 the land. The progress from the extensive cultiva- 

 tions (still found in Hungary, Poland, and North Ger- 

 many), where one central farm had several outworks 

 on a large scale attached to it, to the more moderate divi- 

 sion of the surface, by making separate farms of the out- 

 works, can in the history of these clerical foundations be 

 clearly followed. Up to the period of the sale of the 

 domains by the crown, the distinction remained between 

 the head farm, or " Obcrhof," and the dependent farms, 

 although held by different tenants, in testimony of the 



