456 [Assembly 



that we learn a country. Germany has unhappily too often been 

 studied that way. These unfortunate essays do not agree with 

 my long, reiterated "and impartial studies. I wish to dissipate 

 illusions and to produce a small volume of positive and real 

 utility. 



Germany was first aroused from a dream of passed ages by the 

 grand movement of nations around her, coming from the West, 

 under the standard of Napoleon, and Germany has profitted 

 more by it than all the other States of Europe. Recollect wliat 

 she was hardly fifty years ago, and behold what she now is. 

 What an immense progress in every thing ! 



1 say that the continental system has revived German industry^ 

 hitherto paralysed. 



I entered Germany by Rhenine Prussia, which is, without 

 contradiction, its most beautiful Gate. Almost all the villages 

 which presented themselves on my right, frum the frontier as far 

 as Aix-le-Chapelle, bore a strikingly graceful physiognomy, gai- 

 ly seated in the midst of an abundant, fresh vegetation — the 

 houses small, convenient, and almost entirely hid by leafy vines ; 

 each house with its little garden designed with good taste, and 

 in the midst of all this a people vigorous and well dressed. The 

 general aspect of the agriculture is smiling. 



It is no longer that a few wealthy lords and rich farmers pos- 

 sess the land. Prussia on the Rhine is now divided into 11,215,- 

 .527 parcels, divided among as many families, whose members are 

 workmen, or agriculturists and proprietors. 



This extreme division of the land will astonish persons habit- 

 uated to the calculation of agricultural wealth by the number of 

 great farmers; and, above all, it will astonish England, whose 

 land is possessed by about six hundred nohle families only. Cer- 

 tertaiuly it is not an evil that land should be possessed by a great 

 number of owners. 



The parcels of land mentioned are, on an average, about one 

 acre ; but on the banks of the Moselle, only twenty perches (the 

 eightli of an acre, or two city of New- York lots.) In the circle 



