34
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
one-third ; but if he furnishes the dung, which of course is
only usual where small parcels are cultivated, he gets one
half of the gross produce. This mode of improving the
wages of agricultural labourers would deserve some atten-
tion elsewhere. The tax upon tobacco-growing represses
its cultivation in Prussia, as has been remarked ; but we
shall have frequent opportunities of noticing this crop as
we advance up the Rhine. Near the village of Wissen
tobacco is cultivated on the uplands of Cleves. The
second crop on which the farmer relies as a marketable
one is flax, which we noticed as chiefly cultivated on the
uplands near Pfalzdorf. The flax-fields of a village in the
district of Jülich sometimes cover two hundred morgens
(125 acres). Barley, clover, flax, and wheat, is con-
sidered a good rotation, but flax does not thrive on the
same land oftener than once in six years. The clover
stubbles are ploughed up deeply, and twenty small one-
horse loads of dung carted upon it before the winter,
and left upon the land. In spring the ground is well
harrowed and sown, then harrowed again and rolled.
This surface-dunging is said to have more effect upon the
crop that immediately follows it, than when the dung is
ploughed in. The effect of the ploughed-in dung is,
however, greater on the crops of the following years.
The flax-seed is either from Riga, Belgium, Ortheupper
Rhine. The crop is estimated to average 5 cwt. of
cleaned flax per morgen, or 8 cwt. per English acre. This,
at 4s. per German stone of 11 lbs., gives about 17Z. per
English acre as the gross return, besides seed, of which
5 bushels are gained to the acre. The crop cannot on
the whole be estimated at much less than 201. per acre,
where sufficient care is taken to obtain good quality.
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
35
The lowland cultivator on small farms looks to his
rape-seed crop, with tobacco or flax, according as the soil
or his habits induce him to prefer the one to the other.
The large farmer is a stock-farmer, whose pastures furnish
cheese made in the Dutch or Limburg fashion, and
whose fat cattle find a ready sale in the manufacturing
district of Elberfeld, or in the cities of Diisseldorf and
Cologne. His fallow-crops are therefore mangelwurzel,
Swedish turnips, or carrots and cabbages, and the grains
from his distillery, with oil-cake, eke out his supply ot
fodder in the winter months. Land in the lowlands
is high in price. We were told of a small estate of 18
morgens, with a peasant’s house and offices upon it, that
sold in 1845 for 20,000 dollars, or 3000/. It would be
a high valuation to estimate the buildings at 500/. ; so
that the land sold for 150Z. per English acre.
We endeavoured to give some idea of the position and
standing of the country gentleman on the Lower Rhine.
Our sketch was indeed a hasty and most imperfect one,
but the answer will probably be still less explicit and
satisfactory when we are asked to describe what entitles
a large class of the population to be called peasants.
Peasant is a word that we have borrowed from the
French, and means countryman. The corresponding
word in German is “ Bauer,” which signifies a builder or
workman; and “ the bauer” is the man who works up
the soil for the general nourishment. A minuter in-
quiry shows, therefore, that “ boor,” a word used by us as
a term of reproach, is in reality a distinction expressing
the usefulness of agriculture as pre-eminent amongst the
industrious occupations. The “ Bauern ” of Germany
have only of late been emancipated from the yoke under