The name is absent

AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.

a place in a description of Rhenish agriculture. Yet an ex-
cursion to the county of Ravensberg will repay the curiosity
of any one desirous of studying flax-cultivation. The soil
devoted to it is of the richest description, so that flax
forms the third crop from the manured fallow. Beans
are sown on the fallow, wheat follows, and then comes
flax. The country-people point out the districts where
flax flourishes best, and trace the limit of its degenera-
tion. Here again we find the system of making the most
of the land by the simplest routine. Forcing by a more
studied rotation has not been attempted. As however
flax equal in quality to much of the Belgian flax is pro-
duced in the county of Ravensberg, the effect of ma-
chinery and railroads will be to stimulate the cultivation
of a crop which the peasants understand well. We re-
member to have seen a piece of Bielefeld linen at last
year’s exhibition at Berlin, which the king had purchased
for 112 dollars, or 18Z. 16$.

We shall, however, invite our readers to follow us in
ascending the valley of the Ruhr to its junction with
the Lenna. The country all the way presents the same
pleasing appearance. Nor is the view less gratifying
where the road recedes from the romantic banks of the
river, on which castles, ruins, and factories rapidly suc-
ceed each other. The disposition of the agricultural
tenements continues the same. The house, with its ad-
jacent woods, stands everywhere on the farm in the
manner we described near Essen. The frequent tall
chimneys indicating the sites of coal-mines, round which
labourers’ cottages occasionally cluster, point to other
sources of industrial earnings for a large portion of the
dense population.

AGKICULTLΓ-E ON THE KHINE.

If we leave the Ruhr at Syburg, the elevated site of
Witikind’s castle, and the Sceneoffierceconflict between
that Saxon hero and Charlemagne, and take the road
Ieadingfrom the thriving town of IIagen to the valley of
the Wupper, we pass the line of the new railroad from
Cologne to Minden, which traverses a beautiful valley
on a splendid viaduct. As the traveller approaches
Elberfeld, the seat of the silk and cotton manufactures,
the face of the country presents a totally different aspect
from the adjacent districts of the county of Mark that
we have just traversed. Neat peasants’ houses wdth
small plots of land fill the rather narrow valley, the
hills enclosing which are covered with wood for the use
of the numerous steel-manufacturers. Here is the place
to study the allotment system, although not in its best
form. The factories are nearly all worked by water-
power, and are consequently scattered along the course
of the Wiipper, according as the fall in its bed allows.
Between them the peasants’ houses stand, often at a
distance of a mile or two from the factory, a portion of
whose inmates are the labourers employed. These
houses have a garden, fields that produce grain and
fodder, and usually a piece of meadow on the river’s
bank that helps to feed a cow. Whether the manufac-
turer gains by this association of agriculture with factory
labour we shall have an opportunity of examining in
another volume, where we propose to treat of the state
of manufactures in the Rhenish districts. In an agricul-
tural point of view, little can be said that distinguishes
this from other populous neighbourhoods. The small
holdings are tilled with care, but produce on an average
rather less grain than the large farms. Cabbages, car-

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