AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 59 



date, or to give information beyond their own class. 

 The best description that we have seen is to be found in 

 the ' Tales of the Black Forest,' by M. Auerbach, which 

 have been translated into English, and to which we refer 

 our readers in confidence that they will find in them both 

 information and amusement. 



An advantage that was early drawn from this village 

 association by the farmer, may be traced through all the 

 land of Jiilich and beyond Cologne to Bonn, in a peculiar 

 uniformity of tillage. The winter, summer, and fallow 

 crops of the villages lie all together, an arrangement that 

 sprang from the custom, still in part maintained, of 

 grazing the stubbles after harvest, and the fallow during 

 its year of rest. In the Rhenish districts this primitive 

 mode of cultivation is generally exploded, A fallow is 

 occasionally left unsown once in six or seven years, but 

 then it is carefully and even scientifically ploughed ac- 

 cording to strict rule, and the village right of grazing has 

 shrunk to nothing. Even the peasant now would grudge 

 the dung that fell upon his neighbour's field, and he seeks 

 by stall-feeding to enrich his heap at home to the utmost. 

 Habit, however, still keeps the rye and wheat, the barley 

 and oats, the potatoes and l)eet-root side by side wnere 

 it is practicable, and in the highlands of Nassau and the 

 plain of Darmstadt the traveller will find the custom in 

 strict observance. One serious disadvantage has how- 

 ever been entailed by it, in the scattered position of the 

 peasants' lands ; as formerly every man had land on the 

 three sides, devoted to winter and summer crops, and 

 fallow. The villages lie usually about a mile to a mile 

 and a half from one another. Hence the landowner who 

 happens to have one portion of his land on the outskirts 



