64
-AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
duce of the richest and best managed dairies, and its
correctness has been questioned for the uplands.
Where the land does not suit clover well, the resource
of the farmer is the oil-cake. Hence the light pressure to
which the cakes, both of rape and linseed, are exposed,
and which has recently been turned to account, I believe,
by English millers, who have pressed them over again.
Such cakes are here in great demand in dry seasons, and in
winter are boiled up with straw, potatoes, and other fodder
to keep the cows in milk. The butter, as well as the fat
cattle, find a ready sale in the manufacturing districts of
Crefeld, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Belgium ; and grazing land,
where at all fertile, sells at a high price, being limited to
the banks of brooks and rivulets. On the uplands, 300 to
400 dollars ; in the low inundated land, 500 to 600 dol-
lars, and even more, are paid for the English acre, while
fresh butter sells from ninepence to tenpence per pound.
A good cow may be had for thirty-five to fifty dollars.
(57. 5s. to 77. 10s.) The calf sells at two months for
twelve dollars. (17. 16s.) The cow fattened before
winter in the Belgian fashion, to be replaced by
another in the spring, sells for sixty to seventy-five
dollars (97. to 117. 10s.) to retail butchers. There is,
however, a great deal of unreclaimed land between
Maestricht and Crefeld. In the present year a pur-
chase of 700 morgens was made by a small company
of capitalists to bring it into cultivation. They paid
14,000 dollars for the whole, or at the rate of 17.
18s. per English acre, a price that under the cir-
cumstances must be considered as illustrating the high
value of land, of which we have spoken. We have
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
65
given the details of cheese-making in our description
of Belgian agriculture, to which we refer.
On approaching Aix-la-Chapelle, the traveller, emerg-
ing from the northern passes of the Ardennes, finds the
large monotonous plains on tlɪe north, which we have de-
scribed, interrupted only by a few quaint castellated coun-
try-seats. To the south-east, as the railroad to Cologne
follows the fall of the hills for some time, he has the
forests of the Ardennes, Withthesingular addition of tall
chimneys peeping above the trees, and indicating the site
of the rich coal-mines in the earth beneath them. At
Diirenthe railway reaches the open country, and the ex-
tensive level spreads on either side, seemingly bounded
only by distant rows of hills, of which, however, some lie
beyond the Rhine. A great deal of the land traversed
by the railway is sand of the lightest description, and
was a short time back unreclaimed heath.
At Cologne the traveller reaches a city of 70,000
inhabitants, thriving from trade, and fond of the good
things of this world. There is also a demand from this
neighbourhood to supply the unproductive valleys of
the Ardennes, and that-part of Limburg which is devoted
to pasturage. Grain is therefore the chief object of
farming, and the farmer combines, as far as he can, dis-
tilling and stock-fattening with his fallow crop ; the po-
tato furnishing the material for both. As wre approach
Cologne large farm-houses are here and there visible,
surrounded by arable land, the furrows of which run up
to the city walls. These are farms belonging to the
clerical, charitable, and civic corporations of Cologne,
and are held by men owning sufficient capital to be able
to draw the most advantage from the vicinity of a large