The name is absent

AGKICXJbTURK ON THE RHINE.

circumstanced might not be contented. The following
estimate of the crop in the upland is from high authority,
and has been confirmed by our inquiries :—

The farmer’s speculation turns, in this district, not
upon forcing corn crops, for which he has but a limited
average sale. If he can extract more than usual from
the soil, he would in the uplands increase or repeat his
growth of flax. In the lowlands he w^,ould grow more
rape-seed, clover-seed, and tobacco than he now does.
The change recently made in the English import duties
on seeds has laid the foundation for a great influx of
wealth into the Rhenish district.

We may venture to assume that the above statement
represents the average return of fair soils in the whole of
the region of the Rhine for a careful farmer. More than
thirty bushels of wheat per acre is nowhere obtained, and
with the prevailing meat and corn prices it would evidently
not pay to force a greater corn production at the cost of a
greater consumption of manure. On the other hand, the
repetition of saleable crops is limited by the necessity of
changing frequently the products raised.

A German farm usually supports itself, care being
taken to want as little as possible that is not supplied by
the ground. The bread is baked at home, and the oven,
if possible, heated by faggots from the copse or hedges,
where they exist. The meat is also usually slaughtered
at home, and provisions of beef and pork sausages, of
lard, butter, bacon, hams, and smoked meat, arc periodi-

AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.

cally laid in, together with the potatoes, sour cabbage,
beans, and beet-root, and the dried apple and pear cut-
tings, which form the staple articles of food.

The land may therefore be imagined as divided into
two lots, one of which furnishes the food for household
use and fodder for the cattle, while the other yields the
market crops that are to be turned into money. In the
present style of farming, an estate of 200 acres in the
Duchy of Cleves needs ten men, and ten women or boys,
as farm servants. We may assume that four horses, six
oxen, fifteen cows, ten pigs, and one hundred sheep are
kept. This stock will require, on a close calculation,
90 acres, together with the stubble-turnips off thirty
acres of wheat or rye. Thirty acres of wood will give a
scanty supply of firing, which will need to be eked out
with coals. Ten acres, yielding 300 bushels of rye, or of
equivalents in potatoes and culinary vegetables, are de-
voted to grow food for the inmates. We have then
seventy acres for market crops, with (at Goch) the profit
on the sale of milk, fat cattle, wool, clover-seed, linseed,
the gain on the brewery and distillery, as the revenue of
the Iandowmer ; from which, however, wages, wear and
tear of house, offices, and implements, together with
building alterations, must be deducted.

The land producing the market crops may therefore be
estimated to yield as follows :—

Yield.             Price. Amount.

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