476 AGRICULTURAL MANUFACTURES. 
embracing a great extent of forest, the incomes derived from them 
are immense. Thus Prince Hsterhazy can travel fifty miles from 
Vienna on his own property,* besides large estates possessed by him 
in Hungary and other parts. Austria also, is purely an agricultural 
country, although destitute, or nearly so, of the means of disposing 
of her produce beyond the home consumption. It was therefore 
easy, when once the change was determined on, for the landowners 
to establish the sugar-works, and distilleries upon an extensive scale ; 
and this was in fact the case. 
At first the distilleries were set to work upon grain, the price 
being at that time (1830) very low, and the foreign demand nil. 
But in a few years the corn market recovered its activity, and prices 
of cereal produce rose throughout Europe, so that it was found more 
profitable to employ potatoes on account of the largeness of the 
average produce. In 1857 there were 16,000 distilleries connected 
with the land in the Austrian dominions. The quantity of potatoes 
consumed, according to the statement in the Journal d’ Agriculture 
Practique amounts to 1,250,000 tons annually, which, reckoning a 
produce of three tons per acre, requires an extent of land equal to 
416,666 acres. The quantity of raw spirits extracted from them is 
63,828,039 gallons (imp.), being 20 per cent. of the raw material. 
The residue is estimated at 462,203,028 gallons, and is employed in 
fattening cattle and pigs, for which it is well adapted. It is estima- 
ted that the above quantity is sufficient to fatten 60,000 head of 
cattle of the average size, the manure from which will amply suffice 
to dress 50,000 acres of land. ‘This, however, falls far short of the 
land employed in the cultivation of the tubers, as above stated, which 
shows that the continuance of the system must, without a large 
addition of purchased manure, exhaust and deteriorate the soil. 
It is assumed by the advocates of the system that these two 
manufactures have alone saved the landed interest of Austria from 
utter ruin. This may have been the immediate effect resulting from 
it, but whatever advantages the land owners may have derived from 
it—and they certainly have been enriched by it—the effect is injuri- 
ous both to the occupiers of land and to the country at large, 
Se ee eee ee eee eee ee ee eee 
* Prince Esterhazy has immense flocks of sheep on his estate. The writer was present at 
the Holkham sheep-shearing in 1803 or 1809, when the Earl of Leicester, (then T. W. Coke) 
introduced the Prince, and referred to his being a large flock-master, upon which the Prince 
offered a bet of ten guineas that he had move shepherds than Mr. Coke had sheep. The 
bet was accepted, and upon receiving the account subsequently from the steward, or head 
shepherd, the Prince won the bet by oue shepherd over Mr. Coke’s flock. The Prince is still 
living, and the writer was recently informed by Mr. Smallbones, his consulting steward,. 
that his present flock consists of 250,000 sheep, besides lambs. 
