AGKICULTUEAL ALCOHOL IK GEEMANY. 31 



distillery is equipped with two distilling outfits: (1) A modified 

 hand equipment — that is, a still ordinarily operated without ma- 

 chinery, such as pumps, etc., and therefore of necessity interrupted 

 after each operation — and (2) a modern equipment on a larger scale. 

 Even this, however, is smaller than a minimum-efficiency apparatus 

 should be in accordance' with the computations of the engineering 

 department of the Institute for Ferment Industries at Berlin. 



In order to get the Bavarian distiliers to adopt the plan of alcohol 

 allotment, various concessions had to be made. Therefore, they 

 occupy a favored position of which the northern distillers are 

 envious. They are also permitted to utilize maize (from the Balkan 

 States) whenever the potato crop is insufficient. They are, there- 

 fore, not agricultural distillers in the strict sense of the legal defini- 

 tion of this term as used in Prussia. Moreover, it has been the 

 tendency of the State governments to favor the small distillers in 

 proportion to their smallness. Whereas in the northern States and 

 Provinces the hand equipment has been replaced almost entirely by 

 mechanical operations, in Bavaria there are still a number of small 

 distilleries. This appears to be due to two or three factors, namely, 

 to the large number of small farms and to the conservatism of the 

 farmers. 



At the close of the eighteenth century the central Government of 

 Bavaria permitted the villages to dispose of their communal prop- 

 erty in small parcels to the villagers, a policy which was also 

 adopted by other German States, but in no State was this process 

 carried out in so short a time as in Bavaria. The result, from an 

 agricultural and economic point of view, was very detrimental. A 

 single instance may here be mentioned. Large tracts of land for- 

 merly used as meadow were placed under cultivation, and in a short 

 time the cattle of Bavaria were literally decimated. The reaction on 

 agriculture as a whole was harmful. 



As an indirect outcome of this condition, the Bavarian system of 

 agricultural education during the period near the middle of the 

 nineteenth century lagged far behind that of other German States, 

 although at the beginning the Bavarian Government had made a 

 good start in the education of the newly created farmers. A hundred 

 years ago their education by means of bulletins, etc., was out of the 

 question, because the large majority here, as in many other places, 

 could not read. Systematic education was even less possible. 

 Therefore, education l>y example had to be resorted to, but even then 

 the farmers availed themselves so little of the opportunity that at 

 Weihenstephan it was abandoned for a time. 



This condition of affairs not only explains why there are so many 

 small distilleries in liavaria, but it also explains the attitude of the 

 scientific institutions which constitute their technical advisers. Side 



