66
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
town, for the demand of which the cultivation is of course
adapted. Some of these farms are upon a very large scale,
comprising from 500 to 1000 acres, and indeed through-
out this whole district, which is more trading than manu-
facturing, large allotments farmed by their owners, or by
tenants on lease, are more common than lower down the
river. For minute information respecting the state of
these holdings, and of the calculations of the cultivators,
the best source is accessible in the ready communications
of the gentlemen connected with the Agricultural Society
and model farm at Popplesdorf, near Bonn.
Schwerz gives the following as the yield of corn near
Diiren :—
Wheat .
Rye . . .
Barley .
Winter ditto
. 3⅜ (of 340 lbs.) = 20 bushels (of 60 lbs.)
. 4 (of 300 lbs.) = 24 ,, (of 50 lbs.)
. 4⅜ (of 220 lbs ) = 28 ,, (of 36 lbs.)
.6 (of 220 lbs.) = 36 ,, (of 36 lbs.)
Spring Wheat . 3 (of 340 lbs.) = 17 , ,
Oats after clover 10 (of 190 lbs.) — 57 ,,
Rape-seed . . 7 of2 hectolitres = 35 ,,
(of 60 lbs.)
(of 28 lbs.)
of 36 litres.
The same authority gives the following rotation and
crops as he found them in the circle of Steinbach :—
Rye or wheat after fallow 4⅜
Rye following . . . 3
Oats on clover stubbles . 9
Rye following oats . . 3
Oats on rye-stubble . . 5
Malter = 26 bushels per acre.
,, 17 ,. ,,
,, 50 ,, ,,
1 *,
9 , 1 , 9 9 9 *
,, 29
On the large well-managed farms the yield of wheat,
and rye is somewhat greater. It must also be remarked,
that the numbers above given are taken from a course in
which rye follows wheat and is followed by clover, which
after one year’s ley is broken up for oats. Flax is in
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
67
this whole district not grown as a market crop, the soil
not offeringany peculiar advantages ; and the grain, stock,
and dairy-yield finding a ready sale upon the spot with-
out demanding any effort of skilled labour. Rape-seed, as
is evident from the return given above, is a highly remu-
nerating crop, and, as we have observed, will not fail in
any judicious rotation for the future, as it can now be
easily exported. Clover-seed is also extensively grown
between Aix-la-Chapelle and Bonn.
The plain between Cologne and Euskirchen, where
the eastern offsets of the Ardennes run out to the Rhine
and form its boundary, offers little differing in aspect
for the farmer from the ground we have traversed. The
same mode of cultivation prevails, and the village system
is predominant, although the effects of rising prosperity
in the richer classes begin to show themselves in pretty
country-seats well placed upon the fall of the hills, that
give life to the landscape. Bonn has recently become a
central point of attraction for farmers, as the seat of an
agricultural college and experimental farm on a small
scale. It is not improbable that some of the taste for
farming which is now displayed at Windsor was acquired
or at least improved at Popplesdorf. Of these colleges,
which are numerous in Germany, we shall speak more at
large in a later part of our volume.
A plague peculiar to the dry districts along the Rhine
is found in the mice, which in a fine season swarm in such
myriads, that whole fields are devastated where no
energetic means are adopted for destroying them. It is
true that the winter frosts and spring floods cleanse the
fields to all appearance thoroughly of this nuisance ; yet,
ɪf the month of May be fine, they appear in August with