228 THE SYSTEM OF FAEM-YAKD MANURING. 



exhaustion of the soil, inasmuch as the means for in- 

 creasing the produce of the soil gradually pass away 

 from it by this system. 



Of course, the progress by which these different 

 stages are reached is extremely slow, and the results are 

 felt only by the third and fourth generation. When 

 there are woods near the arable land, the peasant seeks 

 to turn the fallen leaves to account as manure ; he 

 breaks up the natural meadows which are still rich in 

 elements of food for plants, and converts them into 

 arable land ; then he proceeds to burn down the forests, 

 and to manure his fields with the ashes. When the 

 gradual exhaustion in the productive power of the land 

 has led to a corresponding decrease in the population, 

 the peasant cultivates his land once every two years 

 as in Catalonia, or once every three years as in Andalu- 

 sia.* 



No intelligent man who contemplates the present 

 state of agriculture with an unbiased mind, can remain 

 in doubt, even for a moment, as to the stage which hus- 

 bandry has reached in Europe. We find that all coun- 

 tries and regions of the earth where man has omitted to 

 restore to the land the conditions of its continued fer- 

 tility, after having attained the culminating period of 

 the greatest density of population, fall into a state of 

 barrenness and desolation. Historians are wont to 

 attribute the decay of nations to political events and 

 social causes. These may, indeed, have greatly contrib- 

 uted to the result ; but we may well ask whether some 

 far deeper cause, not so easily recognised by historians, 



* The Emperor Charles V. gave orders that the meadows recently 

 turned into arable land should be restored to their former condition. Even 

 before the time of Charles V. orders of the same nature had been issued by 

 the first Catholic Kings, and at a still earlier period by Pedro the Cruel of 

 Castile. In the beginning of the fifteenth century, Henrique of Castile pro- 

 hibited the exportation of cattle, on pain of death ; and as early as the 

 commencement of the fourteenth century, King Alonzo Onzeno had issued 

 ordinances for the preservation of meadows and pastures. (' Bilder aus 

 Spanien von Karl Freiherrn von Thienen, Adlerflycht.' Berlin : Dunker, 

 p. 241.) All in vain ! for what avails the power of even the mightiest 

 monarchs against the irrepressible action of a law of nature ? 



