22
Agkicultiike on the rhine.
Yield. Price. Amount.
IOO sheep, wool, at 5 lbs.
500 lbs. at Is. 8d. £42 13
£955 3
Deduct interest on 2000/. stock . £100
Wages........105
Bepairs of utensils, &c. ... 50
Fuel (coals), veterinary bill, &c. 60
--- 310 O
£645 3
The profit on milk and cattle sold may be set off
against the butcher’s bill for extraordinaries, and if
45/. be estimated to meet the general and local
taxes falling on the ground, we see that 600/. per annum
may be cleared by a farmer who would live with his ser-
vants off 200 acres in the Duchy of Cleves. If the
farmer keeps a gentleman’s establishment united with his
farm, he must deduct the expense of it from his gross pro-
fit ; in doing which it will probably appear that as much
comfort and luxury may be purchased for that sum in Ger-
many as 1200/. per annum would command in England.
We shall shortly review the items that we have given
for the sake of elucidation. The sale of an equal quan-
tity of potatoes to that consumed on the farm is found in
the greater part of Germany to be impossible. As every
one grows his own crop, it is only by changing the shape
in which the superabundance is sold that it can be dis-
posed of. Hence the necessity for the distillery and
brewery which are found on all large farms. The extra
wheat and barley raised would also find no sale at hom<∕
in ordinary years, without this subsidiary help, the profit
on which, however, allows a good price to be reckoned
in the farm books. Those who are disposed to be criti-
AGKICUbTUKE ON THE KHINE.
23
cal on the score of continental farming, should first care-
fully weigh the circumstances of the country and the
state of the market, before they venture an opinion as to
what the cultivation ought to produce. Mr. Jacobs,
and all travellers who have taken pains on this point, have
found the production of Germany very small. Our in-
quiries confirm this fact. We find it, however, natural,
and do not believe that with the present population, and
the restrictions on exportation, it could well be otherwise.
Barley and seeds are here exportable products, their
value is fixed by the Dutch and London prices, as the
value of flax, since the successful exertions of Messrs.
Marshall, is now fixed at Leeds. In the same manner
we find tobacco and wool sold at the rates current in the
general market of Europe. The advantage accruing to
the Rhenish farmer from the recent improved means of
travelling, consists in the bringing these markets nearer
to him. Had no restrictions been anywhere imposed on
the sale of grain, the agriculture of the Rhenish provinces
which lie contiguous to the sterile part of Champagne in
France, to Belgium, and to Holland, all corn-importing
countries, would doubtless have early taken a direction
that would have afforded grain for exportation. Even
then, however, as competition with the fertile districts of
the East of Europe would have remained, grain would in
all probability not have been forced at the cost of under-
draining, as in England. A greater share of general pro-
sperity would have pervaded these districts than now pre-
vails under the fashion of corn prohibitions ; and butcher’s
meat being more generally saleable, would have favoured
the holding of large stocks of cattle, and would have thus
encouraged high manuring.