62
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
press their milch-cows into the yoke, may perhaps be
explained by the combination of distilling with farming,
to which we alluded when noticing the gain afforded by
fattening oxen on grain and potato-mash. It is however
a proof that no pressure towards great economy is felt ;
not that the farmers are rich enough to be able to dis-
pense with it, but they can get on without it, and no very
brilliant success achieved in other spheres of industry
spurs them to seek for more. The harrows used have
little to deserve notice ; iron teeth are everywhere in use.
But we must particularly notice a remarkably shaped
scythe, which is in use on the rich soils on both banks of
the Lower Rhine, and is chiefly used in getting in the
oat-crop. The blade is Iighterthanthat of a grass-scythe,
but of the same shape, and is fixed at an acute angle to
the thick stick about three feet long, from which a wooden
handle projects at a right angle to the blade at the other
end. This scythe is swung with one hand while the
reaper holds his stick in the other, and after a kind of
slashing cut gathers the grain on the scythe and lays it
over. We were assured that a reaper with this instru-
ment could get over half as much land again as with the
sickle. To us it appeared a fatiguing tool, and scarcely
applicable to barley, which it must cause to shed.
The cradle-scythe in use in Belgium and other parts
of Germany seems in every way to deserve prefer-
ence. Sowing-machines are little used on the Lower
Rhine, nor are thrashing-machines in use. Hand-screens
are used for winnowing, but the implements of this dis-
trict present nothing choice or very interesting.
We shall have occasion to speak more fully and more
favourably of German agricultural implements when we
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
63
come to the Upper Rhine, where more attention has been
paid to the subject. We shall here endeavour to com-
plete our general survey of the country on the Lower
Rhine, by some remarks on the appearance that portion
presents which the traveller crosses who enters Germany
from Belgium.
For a long time after passing the Prussian frontier be-
tween Verviers or Liege and Aix-la-Chapelle, the same
scenery continues with which the traveller became ac-
quainted on leaving the banks of the Meuse. The steep
hills are laid down in beautiful pastures, on which the
cattle graze, whose dung-falls are made conspicuous by
the sweepings of the broom that twice a day distributes
this manure over the adjacent surface. Dairy farming is
the inheritance of this district, and the Limburg cheese,
at whichever side of the border it is made, can rank with
any cream-cheese but those of Stilton and Cottenham.
These pastures cannot vie in richness with those we
have mentioned as forming the agricultural riches of the
lowlands along the Rhine, and which are laid down on
such a level that the spring floods of the Rhine wash over
them. The peasants have therefore no superabundance
of hay, and in winter straw cut and occasionally mixed
with potatoes, carrots, or mangel-wurzel, or oil-cake,
forms the chief fodder. Yet the daily yield in milk we
have found estimated at twelve to sixteen pots, yielding a
pound of butter, for four to five months after calving, with
a falling oft’ of one-third in the remaining six months of
the year. Six or eight weeks is the period during which
the cows are dry before calving. As this estimate gives
from 230 to 250 lbs. of butter yearly, it equals the pro-