GERMANY. , 389 



GERMANY. 



BREEDS OF CATTLE Itf GERMANY, 



CATTLE IN HESSE-NASSAU AND PRUSSIA. 



It has been found very difficult, in the commercial city of Frankfort-on- 

 the-Main and its neighborhood, to obtain any information and data rela- 

 tive to the number, races, properties, and condition of cattle in the prov- 

 ince, of which said city is the commercial center. The country around 

 Frankfort is thickly dotted with thriving cities and villages, and the divis- 

 ion of landed property has proceeded to such an extent as to make farms 

 or estates of a hundred or several hundreds of acres a rare exception. The 

 populousness of the country, moreover, insuring a ready sale of all the 

 finer and more delicate products of the soil, the raising of which is facili- 

 tated by a mild and equable climate, has tended to make the raising and 

 maintenance of cattle comparatively unreraunerative. Thus it is, that 

 cattle-breeding and raising is comparatively unknown in the province of 

 Hesse-Nassau, and that one but seldom sees such herds of cattle as 

 abound on the extensive meadows of Northern Germany and the Nether- 

 lands. 



The temperature of this city and province, although lying entirely above 

 the 50th degree of latitude, is very moderate and equable, indeed. The 

 mean temperature during the thirty years from 1851 to 1880 was 9.9 Cel- 

 sius ; in the warmest year of those thirty years it was 11.3, and in the 

 coldest 8.2. The mean temperature in winter is 1.1, in spring 9.6, 

 in summer 18.9, and in fall 9.8, all of the centigrade scale. The highest 

 point the thermometer reached in the thirty years referred to was 36.6, 

 on July 21, 1865, and the lowest 2 1 .3, on January 7, 1861. The mean at- 

 mospheric pressure during said years was 753A wm , and varied between 

 750.8 mm (in 1853) and 757.6 mm (in 1854). 



The province of Hesse-Nassau embraces the circuits of Onsseland Wies- 

 baden, and contains an area of 15,692 square kilometers, on which is 

 maintained a population of 1,554,376 inhabitants. The following table 

 will show the number of cattle k;, said province in the years 1873 and 1883, 

 as found by the official census, viz : 



Circuit of Cassel in 1873 .1 270,001 



Circuit of Cassel in 1883 _ 272,266 



Increase in 10 years 2,265 



Circuit of Wiesbaden in 1873 206,367 



Circuit of Wiesbaden in 1883 219,450 



Increase in 10 years 13,083 



Total in the province of Hcsse-Nassr,u : 



In 1873 478,633 



In 1883 489,451 



Total incroaso in ten years . 10,818 



