68
AGRICULTURE OX THE RHINE.
undiminished force. In various villages the remedies
attempted are different. Sometimes a reward in money is
offered per one hundred skins, and the youthful population
is encouraged to exert its skill and passion for the chace
on the modern hydra. All such efforts prove, however,
ineffectual to keep down the numbers of the general foe,
whose paths across a corn-field are nearly as broad as
those trodden by single foot-passengers, while the hoard
abstracted from his crop is estimated by the farmer from
the number of straws nibbled off at a short distance from
the ground, the ears from which have disappeared within
the subterranean labyrinths, that often repay the labour of
digging up. In the neighbourhood of Jülich a mode of
smoking out the mice has been introduced from Belgium.
An iron pan, two feet high, has at bottom a grating sup-
ported by a pin. On the grating some charcoal is laid,
and the pan, when filled with rags, leather, and sulphur,
is fastened with an air-tight cover which has a small
tube, into which a small hose connected with a bel-
lows is inserted. The pan is held by an upper and a side
handle. The night before it is used the field is sur-
veyed, and all open mouse-holes are trodden close. In
the morning such as are re-opened indicate those which
are tenanted, and one being selected, the lower part of
the pan is pressed against it, and the bellows being set at
work, the smoke issues from the orifice near the grating,
and penetrates into the runs or galleries that connect the
holes. A number of assistants are required to tread the
crevices close through which the smoke is seen to escape ;
and if all due precautions be taken, great numbers of these
diminutive enemies may be slaughtered, and at the same
time buried in their subterranean holds.
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
69
Much has been humorously said on the subject of the
magisterial edicts which in Germany periodically pre-
scribe the cleansing of fruit-trees, and the extinction of
snails, slugs, and caterpillars, which is literally enjoined
“ de par le roi.” It is, however, easier to smile at such
attempts than to suggest an effectual remedy. Experience
has shown that if fruit-trees are properly examined, and the
crevices in the bark well cleaned, the destruction caused by
insects, whose growth, like thatof the plant they live upon,
is favoured by the fine climate, may be much diminished.
The fruit gathered on the Rhine is everywhere an addi-
tion to the comforts, and often a source Ofenviable revenue
to the villagers, ripening well and being wholesome ; and
it is one of the evils of a minute subdivision of property
that simultaneous exertion is difficult to obtain when
needful. The magisterial sanction is therefore sought to
force the tardy to similar exertion with the industrious,
whose help all can command in the common cause, but
whose exertions no one should be allowed to thwart by
wilful neglect. If any who ridicule this village legis-
lation had seen the whole male population of a district
in Hungary, or in Southern Russia, turn out armed to
resist an invasion of locusts, they would appreciate the
simple efforts to the effectual application of which Western
Europe is indebted for its freedom from many of the
plagues that still devastate the richer tracts of the East.
One of the most necessary, and at the same time one of
the most effectual, of the precautions thus taken, and of
which we in England are most happily ignorant, is the
quarantine and inspection to which horned cattle im-
ported from Turkey are subjected all along the eastern
frontier of the Austrian empire. It is not uncommon to