52 AGRICULTURE OX THE RHINE. 



rots, small patches of flax and rape-seed, point to the 

 wants or prevailing market crops of German peasants. 

 It must be owned that a labouring population, so scat- 

 tered and rurally disposed, forms a pleasing contrast to 

 the dingy rows of cottages that are met with at the 

 entrance to our manufacturing towns. Allowance must, 

 however, be made for the small scale on which the 

 German factories are erected, and for the substitution of 

 water for steam power, which scatters the establishments 

 instead of accumulating them on one spot. Perhaps a 

 taste for gardening might, in England, be usefully nour- 

 ished in the female manufacturing population. But we 

 doubt whether the English workman would change with 

 the German, however idyllic his dwelling may appear to 

 the stranger. John Bull is much to be justified if he 

 prefers fresh bread from the baker's to the homely 

 rye-loaves that are here manufactured once a fortnight, 

 and if he thinks beef and mutton selected at the shambles 

 both better and cheaper than the dry cows and old 

 wethers that form, the greatest part of his time, the meat 

 at a German villager's meal. 



Another source of earning for the peasants of this 

 district is the carriage of goods to and from the Rhine. 

 The ox, the primitive agent of draught, has, in conse- 

 quence of the good roads, been very much superseded by 

 horses. These are now about to make way for the rail- 

 road, which will, besides, introduce cheap com from the 

 inland counties of Germany. Of course, a modification 

 of the present system of cultivation must be anticipated. 

 If manufactures spread with the improved means of trans- 

 port, we may look to see these valleys filled with the 

 cottages of workmen surrounded by gardens only. In 



