AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE, 209 



or preserve houses of good size for their families, in which 

 sufficient and substantial furniture is also found. The 

 description of a village on the Lower Rhine will perhaps 

 in many details be recalled here to the memory, by the 

 extent and irregular plan of the farm-offices, the strag- 

 gling position of the houses, the neglected state of the 

 streets, roads, and other passages, with the never-failing 

 accompanimentof countless dunghills, which meet the gaze 

 in their unvarnished impurity here as there. The houses 

 are, however, usually larger than on the Lower Rhine, 

 and both soil and climate remunerate the cultivator's toil 

 with a richer return. A few years back the estimate of 

 the rental of the families of Handschuhsheim, according 

 to which they were taxed, averaged 180 florins, or 15/., 

 for each household, as revenue drawn from the laud and 

 the occupations that it furnished. We have seen that in 

 this village 378 landowners possessed 1400 Heidelberg 

 morgens ; the average was, therefore, to each nearly 4 

 morgens, or something less than four English acres. If 

 anybody should wonder, therefore, that a family can exist 

 without distress upon 16/. per annum, they "must find it 

 still more wonderful that where this is practicable any- 

 body can earn 41. per acre, and, still more, make this an 

 average return for 378 families in one village, even with 

 the assistance of the little trades and occupations which a 

 village commands. The agricultural system must be 

 worth studying that can boast such a result. 



In the instruments used the peasants of this neigh- 

 bourhood show their willingness to adopt improvements 

 where they are practically useful. Their own plough, 

 although in appearance much lighter than that we 

 have described as common on the Lower Rhine, is well 



