AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 63 



come to the Upper Rhine, where more attention has been 

 paid to the subject. We shall here endeavour to com- 

 plete our general survey of the country on the Lower 

 Rhine, by some remarks on the appearance that portion 

 presents which the traveller crosses who enters Germany 

 from Belgium. 



For a long time after passing the Prussian frontier be- 

 tween Verviers or Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle, the same 

 scenery continues with which the traveller became ac- 

 quainted on leaving the banks of the Meuse. The steep 

 hills are laid down in beautiful pastures, on which the 

 cattle graze, whose dung-falls are made conspicuous by 

 the sweepings of the broom that twice a day distributes 

 this manure over the adjacent surface. Dairy farming is 

 the inheritance of this district, and the Limburg cheese, 

 at whichever side of the border it is made, can rank with 

 any cream-cheese but those of Stilton and Cottenham. 

 These pastures cannot vie in richness with those we 

 have mentioned as forming the agricultural riches of the 

 lowlands along the Rhine, and which are laid down on 

 such a level that the spring floods of the Rhine wash over 

 them. The peasants have therefore no superabundance 

 of hay, and in winter straw cut and occasionally mixed 

 with potatoes, carrots, or mangel-wurzel, or oil-cake, 

 forms the chief fodder. Yet the daily yield in milk we 

 have found estimated at twelve to sixteen pots, yielding a 

 pound of butter, 'for four to five months after calving, with 

 a falling oif of one-third in the remaining six months of 

 the year. Six or eight weeks is the period during which 

 the cows are dry before calving. As this estimate gives 

 from 230 to 250 lbs. of butter yearly, it equals the pro- 



