AGRICULTURAL SURVEY OF EUROPE : GERMANY 
15 
The Republic of Germany, as constituted by the treaty of Ver- 
sailles, has a total area of 181,524 square miles, or is about the 
size of Colorado and Wyoming. It has a population (1924 estimate) 
of 62,825,000, or 346 per square mile. 
Germany lies between the forty-seventh and the fifty-fifth degrees 
of north latitude, or about the same distance from the Equator as 
the Canadian Province of British Columbia. 
Topographically the country may be considered as divided into two 
nearly equal parts, the highland region in the south and west and the 
lowland plain of the north and east. The mountainous region may be 
said, roughly, to include southern Silesia, southern Free State 
X 
switzerland7*\^'V. < >' < " V> 
POLAND, 1920 ■ 
LITHUANIA , 1920 ■ 
FRANCE, 1918 ■ 
LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
s ' SW£*S££ m °^ nmark ' ,32 ° ^ 
r aust. aa.oiu.,1920 ■ %ZJZ™Z 9 
CZECH0SL0VAXIA,l92l\Z2h Leogue of Notions) 1920 (23 
Fig. 2.— Map of Germany, showing ceded areas 
Germany ceded away 27,240 square miles of territory, while the Saar plebiscite includes 744 addi- 
tional square miles, totaling 13.4 per cent of the former German Empire. The ceded territories of 
Posen and West Prussia include some of the richest surplus producing agricultural lands, while 
most of the other ceded territories were agricultural deficit regions. The net effect of the territorial 
changes brought about by the Versailles treaty was to increase the dependence of Germany upon 
foreign sources of agricultural supplies 
Saxony, Thuringia, half of the Province of Saxony, Westphalia, and 
the Rhineland, and all the region to the south and west of these 
Provinces. 
Practically all the northern portion of the country lies in the great 
European plain, across which the Kivers Oder, Elbe, and Rhine 
flow from the highlands of the south in a general northwest direction 
to the Baltic and German Seas. The German portion of the Euro- 
pean plain is only slightly above sea level, with occasional minor 
variations, relics of ancient moraines. The soil is chiefly of medium 
or light sand, excellent for rye or potatoes. In some districts a 
good loam prevails and in the river valleys a medium to heavy allu- 
vial soil predominates. The heavy clays and loams of the sea 
marshes are much more fertile than the other lighter soils. In 
