AGKICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 161 



make a trial of it, and the knowledge and talent that now 

 iinds a field in agricultural improvements is likely hereafter 

 to confer great benefit on the country. We say here- 

 after, as pointing- to two indispensable changes that must 

 precede an improvement in the prospects of the Rhenish 

 agriculturist. The one, the abolition of those impediments 

 to exportation which still exist in France, the Low Coun- 

 tries, and England, and which has made some jn-ogress 

 since our volume went to press. The other, a change in 

 the industrial arrangements at home which will favour 

 the division of labour between agriculturists and manu- 

 facturers to the great advantage of each, may be slower in 

 progress. In England, where this division has long been 

 effected, the calculations of farmers turn chiefly on com- 

 binations resembling manufacturing operations. For the 

 Scotch farmer the land ;s a machine, and when its ma- 

 nagement is familiar to him he conducts the farming ope- 

 rations of 10,000 acres as easily as he does those of 

 1000. Sure markets, with high prices for corn and 

 cattle, allow him fearlessly to risk the chances which a 

 very bad climate for grain renders inevitable. In south- 

 ern Germany the climate is highly favourable for grain 

 crops, and large tracts of land in the valleys of the Rhine, 

 the Lahn, and the Maine, are highly fertile. The bounds 

 to speculation lie in the limited market, which at home is 

 confined by the number of agriculturists that stand in 

 each other's way and prevent the increase of the con- 

 suming population. With every addition to the popula- 

 tion in England the profits of the farmers increase ; and 

 should the corn laws be continued the consumers would 

 eventually come into such dependence on the producers 

 that the latter would find little necessity for extraordinary 



