72
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
such a measure be accompanied by a multiplication of the
consumers, that is to say, of the markets, it is not easy to
see what agriculturists have to gain by such a step. In
Prussia it is estimated that three persons are employed in
agriculture for one engaged in trade or manufactures.
This will explain why, with such low prices as we
usually find quoted in Germany, there is never a super-
abundance of corn, while prices rise rapidly on the first
symptom of a demand from England. It will also account
for the modes of cultivation that prevail, under which
only a moderate yield is extracted from the land. That
with the soil and climate of the Lower Rhine a far greater
return might be obtained, is shown by the example of
Belgium and England. But why should it be raised if
there is no one to buy it? The exportation of wheat to
F rance and Belgium assumes every year a more constant
form. It will not be long before England appears
as a regular customer at the Continental markets.
It will then remain to be seen whether the more
distant but more fertile districts of Poland will be able to
furnish grain on better terms than the nearer plains of
Germany, with their intelligent population. The irre-
gularity of our demand has obliged countries that cannot
produce without cost to leave us out of their calculations.
The next weighty consideration that presses itself upon
us is the fact that, in the trading and manufacturing dis-
tricts, and on the Rhine generally, both the rent of land
and its capital value are higher than that of similarly cir-
cumstanced land in England. We have endeavoured to
explain this fact from the circumstance that there are
crops that all times assert their full value in the market
of the world, such as seeds, flax, tobacco, dairy produce,
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
73
&c. On these the German farmer who works on a suf-
ficiently large scale relies for his profit. It so happens
that the demand for all those articles must increase when
the price of corn falls, for more of them is consumed when
bread is cheap than when it is dear. Thus the landlord
holds the disease and its remedy in his own hands ; if he
wishes market crops, as they are here called, to rise in
value, he must lower the price of grain. If corn became
so cheap that it was not worth growing, he would find
an immense demand for all other produce to indemnify
him. Upon this calculation have those countries relied
who have imposed no restrictions upon the price of grain ;
and we see from the experience of the Rhenish farmer
on a larger scale, that it is a just one wτhcre trade and
manufactu∣,es furnish wherewith to pay for superfluities.
This remuneration, how,ever, cannot be expected in any
country wdɪere political or fiscal regulations favour an ac-
cumulation of cultivators on a small scale ; and the rule is
consequently as little vitiated by the experience of other
parts OfGermanyas it is by that of Bengal, w'here similar
poverty prevails amidst still richer natural advantages.
We have before remarked that farming out land to
tenants is a practice that is only common on the Lower
Rhine. In other parts of Germany the large demesnes
of the crown, and of the nobility, as well as the estates of
corporations and foundations, are let on lease to a class of
tenants possessing capital, and generally specially edu-
cated for the oc(upation. Rents are in these instances
mostly rated according to the vicinity or distance of the
large towns. On the Lower Rhine land of all kinds is
to be had on lease and in allotments of all sizes. A