AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 11 



children of a family ; but the facilities for trade which 

 this district enjoys cause the junior members to prefer 

 leaving the land to a brother, who looks to farming-, 

 while they seek their livelihood elsewhere. We thus 

 find that a law expressly intended to promote small 

 holdings has as little eiFect upon the size of farms as the 

 law of entail in England, which might be supposed to 

 farour large holdings. Where activity prevails and is 

 not restrained, the size of estates must be fixed by the 

 kind of cultivation that is found best to answer the far- 

 mer's purpose. Were we to select a good model of the 

 style of farming that prevails in the Duchy of Cleves, 

 we should recommend the traveller to leave the city, 

 which preserves few traces of its former dignity beyond 

 its commanding site, and follow the high road leading 

 along the heights parallel with the Rhine to Goch, an 

 ancient and picturesque town twenty miles to the south of 

 Cleves. In a handsome house about half a mile distant 

 from the town resides Herr von Busch,a gentleman farm- 

 ing his estate of about 200 acres in the fashion of the 

 best school of German agriculture. The house is in the 

 Italian style of architecture, larger than is usual amongst 

 country gentlemen in general, and in the rear, toge- 

 ther with the offices, is a very spacious farm-yard. To 

 the offices of farms of this description there belongs a 

 distillery on a small scale, and occasionally, as at Goch, 

 a brewery. The low price of corn on the Continent 

 makes it worth the grower's while to manufacture from it 

 some article that is more in demand than the grain. 

 Stabling for horses, cows, and oxen, here used for 

 draught, all airy and roomy, with barns that for the ex- 

 tent of the grounds would appear enormous to an English 



