AGKICULTURE ON THE EHIXE 99 



We cannot omit a very important service renderea Dy 

 the government in the appointment of district physicians, 

 who are bound to go wherever they may be required, and 

 to report on the general state of the public health. The 

 poorest person can demand their assistance without fee- 

 ing them, but the richer peasants never fail to give some 

 compensation. This excellent institution is completed 

 by the appointment of official druggists in all district 

 capitals, who are bound to keep only the best drugs, and 

 to sell them at a fixed tariff. In no country is medicai 

 relief less expensive and more easily accessible than in 

 Germany. 



We propose treating in separate chapters the special 

 interference assumed by the state in one of the most 

 important branches of village economy — the management 

 of the forests. The taxes that are raised directly fron) 

 agriculture we also propose to explain and illustrate in a 

 special chapter. But some of these village arrangements, 

 although savouring of antiquity, are calculated to rouse 

 the inquiry whether the spirit which called them into 

 existence, and the calculation upon which they are 

 founded, might not be acted upon still to the great ad- 

 vantage of society. 



In the first place, to the mill of the lord of the manor, 

 to which the peasants, while serfs, were bound to bring 

 their grain to be ground, a village mill has succeeded, 

 occasionally forming part of the corporation property, 

 sometimes owned by shareholders who have purchased the 

 mill of some once privileged owner. As it is still usual 

 all over Germany for peasants to grind their own corn, 

 there may be seen a table in all these mills in which the 

 miller's fee, usually a portion of the meal, is expressed for 



