AGRICULTURE ON THE RHI>'E. 57 



Tlie effects of trade and irianufactures upon the agri- 

 cultural interests on the left bank of the Rhine are only 

 strikingly visible as far as Crefeld, with the adjoining 

 circle of Gladbach. As we approach Neuss all assumes 

 an appearance that must be as novel to a Belgian and a 

 Dutchman as to an Englishman. The whole face of the 

 country is altered. Large tracts of arable land, denuded 

 of all planting, and no longer dotted with the houses or 

 cottages of the cultivators, extend on every side, but 

 leave the villages clustered round the distant spires, dis- 

 tinctly visible in testimony of the existence of inhabitants, 

 who are only seen on the fields at sowing and harvest 

 time. What we have hitherto seen, together with much 

 else that we shall have to describe upon the Rhine, is 

 exceptional in German scenery. But from Neuss to the 

 mountains near Bonn, and as far as the distant coast of the 

 Baltic, the habit of living in villages, often at a consider- 

 able distance from the fields they cultivate, is the leading 

 feature of German agricultural life. Nearly all the social 

 and not a few political arrangements are essentially af- 

 fected by this disposition of the dwellings of the inhabit- 

 ants, which has materially contributed to form the na- 

 tional character. In former times it is possible that self- 

 defence was the cause of a custom so generally adopted. 

 The number of inhabitants in a village, although unable 

 to contend with a large armed force, sufficed to ward off 

 the plundering or tyrannical attempts of single knightly 

 freebooters, at a time when it was found necessary to 

 sanctify by clerical injunctions the plough in the field, 

 and to exempt Sundays and holidays from sanguinary 

 contest by the " Treve de Dieu." That the custom still 

 prevailed after those barbarous ages had passed away may be 



