AGRICULTURS ON THE RHINE. 175 



creasing the labour of tillage. Near Frankfort there are 

 several large farms, the property of foundations, clerical, 

 charitable, or civic ; and the approach to the city is 

 through a little forest of apple- trees, which seem to pro- 

 claim the love of the Frankfort people for cider. Of the 

 various farms, one belonging to M. Bcthmann will best 

 repay the trouble of visiting. 



From Darmstadt to Heidelberg the road runs along the 

 foot of the Oden mountains, and has the plain on one 

 side. The mixture of picturesque mountain scenery with 

 the rich cultivation and plantations of fruit-trees in the 

 plain have given celebrity to this Bergstrasse, which will 

 soon be rendered accessible to tourists by the railroad 

 from Frankfort to Heidelberg that will be opened in the 

 summer of 1846. Between this road and the Rhine large 

 villages intervene, which, lying out of the high road, 

 preserve much that is antiquated in the dress and man- 

 ners of the inhabitants. There is, however, also, a great 

 deal of poverty in these villages, the lands of which are 

 sandy, and exposed to frequent floods from the BJiinc. 

 The whole space of country between the hills and the 

 river presented, in the spring of 1845, the appearance of 

 one enormous lake, involving great destruction of pro- 

 perty. The Grand Duchy of Darmstadt is altogether an 

 agricultural state, possessing no manufactures of any im- 

 portance. The revenue is also principally drawn from 

 the cultivators of the soil, and the land-tax and parish- 

 rates are both heavy, and press severely on the poor land- 

 holders, whose energies are lamed by the dispersed situa- 

 tions of the lands they till. The village sj'stem, in this 

 respect, presents its most disadvantageous side in this 

 portion of Hesse Darmstadt. 



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