AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 69 



Much has been humorously said on the subject of the 

 mag-isterial edicts which in Germany periodically pre- 

 scribe the cleansing of fruit-trees, and the extinction of 

 snails, slugs, and caterpillars, which is literally enjoined 

 " de par le roi." It is, however, easier to smile at such 

 attempts than to suggest an eftectual remedy. Experience 

 has shown that if fruit-trees are properly examined, and the 

 crevices in the bark well cleaned, the destruction caused by 

 insects, whose growth, like thatof the plant they live upon, 

 is favoured by the fine climate, may be much diminished. 

 The fruit gathered on the Rhine is everywhere an addi- 

 tion to the comforts, and often a source of enviable revenue 

 to the villagers, ripening well and being wholesome ; and 

 it is one of the evils of a minute subdivision of property 

 that simultaneous exertion is difficult to obtain when 

 needful. The magisterial sanction is therefore sought to 

 force the tardy to similar exertion with the industrious, 

 whose help all can command in the common cause, but 

 whose exertions no one should be allowed to thwart by 

 wilful neglect. If any who ridicule this village legis- 

 lation had seen the whole male population of a district 

 in Hungary, or in Southern Russia, turn out armed to 

 resist an invasion of locusts, they would appreciate the 

 simple efforts to the effectual application of which Western 

 Europe is indebted for its freedom from many of the 

 plagues that still devastate the richer tracts of the East. 

 One of the most necessary, and at the same time one of 

 the most effectual, of the precautions thus taken, and of 

 which we in England are most happily ignorant, is the 

 quarantine and inspection to which horned cattle im- 

 ported from Turkey are subjected all along the eastern 

 frontier of the Austrian empire. It is not uncommon to 



