AGRICULTURE OX THE RHINE. StS 



responsible for all the depreciations that have beea 

 committed in the same year previous to his apprehen- 

 sion. In default of any person thus detected and made 

 responsible, the party robbed can proceed against the 

 village for redress, on the ground of insufficient protec- 

 tion from the field-police. A curious attempt is some- 

 times made to identify stolen fruit or vegetables in the 

 public market-places of the large towns. The hubbub 

 occasioned by such a proceeding, and the indiscriminate 

 kind of evidence produced by the parties interested, our 

 readers will easily picture to themselves. 



Chestnuts furnish the inhabitants of the Rhenish dis- 

 tricts throughout with an article of food. They are 

 either eaten plain after roasting, or are boiled with 

 various vegetables ; and are occasionally served as stuffing 

 with fowls. The largest plantation we have heard of 

 belongs to the town of Wiesbaden, and consists of several 

 thousand trees, which yield a considerable annual re- 

 venue. Along the Bergstrasse, between Darmstadt and 

 Heidelberg, as along the eastern fall of the Black Forest, 

 and the offsets of the Vosges on the opposite side of the 

 Rhine, the chestnut is a favourite tree in the village fruit- 

 plantations. 



In any of the sequestered villages along the romantic 

 part of the Rhine, which present little that is interesting 

 on the subject of corn-growing or dairy-farming, the 

 traveller will find a good opportunity of studying what 

 may be called the foundation of German nationalit}-. 

 The feeling of nationality has its deepest roots in the 

 village economy, which we before described in general 

 terms. The villages hold the people together, and in 

 them the first attempts at association on a large scale 



