THROUGH CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 
351 
ours: 1, in the care, labor and expense with which the soil is prepared for 
the various crops. Their implements of agricultuie are, for the most part, 
greatly inferior to ours; but they make up for this deficiency in the thorough¬ 
ness and patience with which they use them ; while, in the matter of fertiliz¬ 
ing their fields, there is no comparison to be made. We are cultivating 
virgin soils. They are are tilling lands that have borne crops for centuries. 
And yet their yields are greater than ours—in the case of some countries, 
twice as large. The secret of which lies in the fact that, there scarcely any¬ 
thing is permitted to go to waste that would add to the productiveness of the 
soil. The farmers convert every available vegetable and animal substance 
produced on the farm into manure; and, not content with this, the cities 
are drained and scraped of their offal to add to the supply, and even 
the country highways, as I have repeatedly noticed in the best por¬ 
tions of England, France, Belgium and Germany, are carefully gleaned 
of all casual droppings. 2. It is superior in the attention there given to the 
rotation of crops. A farmer in the better portions of Germany, Switzerland, 
Belgium, England, or Scotland, who should be guilty of the reckless, hap¬ 
hazard, no-system practiced by us, would be an anomalous character and 
summarily punished by—starvation. 8. It is pre-eminantly superior in the at- 
tention given to forestry and the extraordinary pains taken to make the land¬ 
scape, and especially the highways, beautiful by the planting of useful and orna¬ 
mental trees. In Germany it is common to find fruit trees—the apple, the 
cherry and the pear—lining the public thoroughfares for miles; thus 
affording a pleasant shade by the way, and at the same time delicious 
fruits for the enjoyment alike of the proprietor and the way-worn traveler. 
The time is sure to come, it is even now come, when the agriculturists of this 
country must give both thought and labor to the production of timber fop 
fuel and mechanical uses, ^nd for the improvement of climate and the pro. 
tection of fruit crops, as well as to the liberal planting of orchards ; and the 
sooner they become impressed with this necessity the better. In the tim¬ 
bered districts there must be a careful saving of a sufficient amount for the 
future, and in the great prairie districts an early and judicious planting. Let 
us imitate Germany in this important branch of husbandry. 4. European 
agriculturists have another advantage over American, in the prohibition 
of domestic animals from making free ranges of all public highways and such 
cultivated fields as would otherwise be more or less exposed. On the conti¬ 
nent one may travel hundreds of miles without seeing a fence for protection 
against cattle. Innumerable farms, with a variety of valuable crops, lie side 
by side, as if so many individual beds in one illimitable garden ; all live 
stock being either housed, (‘r grazed under the care of herdsmen and dogs. 
To my eye, the effect of such a landscape is incomparably more pleasing, and 
it is certainly more economical management, where timber is scarce. 
The public improvements are built for security and permanency. This is 
not more remarkably illustrated by the superiority of their public buildings, 
which—unlike our own state capitol, whose mush-and-milk walls, thinly and 
