Bavarian Roads. 413 



appeared about the cottages which is far fi'om common either 

 in France or Germany. These remarks are not the result of 

 observations made, as is frequently the case, from the cabriolet 

 of a public diligence, but from deliberate inspection, and 

 from entering many of the cottages and schools. To enable 

 us to do this, we travelled, every where in Germany, in a 

 private carriage, and never in the dark. We had also, as we 

 have before stated, the advantage, while in Munich, of con- 

 stant intercourse with M. Hazzi, M. Sckell, and other members 

 of the Agricultural Society; with the chief engineer, Baader, 

 who had been many years in Scotland ; with Baron Eichthal, 

 the proprietor of a large estate, on which he has introduced 

 the Scotch husbandry, and with whom we were acquainted in 

 London ; and with his very intelligent tenant, an East Lothian 

 farmer. The result of the whole of the information procured, 

 and of the observations made, is, that we think the inhabit- 

 ants of Bavaria promise soon to be, if they are not already, 

 among tlie happiest people in Germany. The climate of 

 the country will prevent its agriculture and gardening from 

 advancing beyond a certain point ; but to that point both will 

 very soon be carried. 



So desirous is the government of improving not only the 

 agriculture, but even the face of the country, that they have 

 a standing commission, consisting of counsellors, engineers, 

 architects, and the landscape-gardener Sckell, solely for the 

 purpose of devising improvements in the direction of public 

 roads, canals, bridges, public buildings, and gardens, national 

 forests, but, above all, for lining the public roads with trees. 

 These trees are in some places, in the suburbs of towns, chiefly 

 ornamental ; in others they are fruit trees, or mulberry trees 

 cultivated for the silkworm (a catechism on the manage- 

 ment of which is also published by M. Hazzi) ; and, where 

 nothing more profitable or ornamental will grow, forest trees. 

 An extraordinary degree of attention is paid to the mile- 

 stones and to the guide-posts, neither of which are wanting 

 on any road. The guide-posts are generally painted black, 

 with the letters in white or red, the black contrasting better 

 with the snow, which in some parts of the country covers the 

 ground for six months in every year. Some of the mile- 

 stones have a bench of stone, forming a plinth or base 

 around them, as a seat ; others, where stone is not so plentiful, 

 have a semicircular area of turf round them, bounded by 

 a bench of the same material, as a seat, and planted behind 

 with poplars or other trees. The neatness with which these 

 turf benches, and the ditches or other fences, and also the 

 grass margins by the sides of the roads, are kept far sur- 



