90
Agkicultuse ox the khixe.
all the quantities commonly brought. The feeling of
security conveyed by the power of doing without ex-
traneous help, a relic perhaps of the times when commu-
nications were liable to constant interruption, and bad
roads made carriage difficult or impossible, still gives
value to these mills. We have known instances of large
sums being refused for mills that were sought for manu-
facturing purposes ; the ground assigned being that the
village could not do without its mill.
A public baking-oven is another appendage to a Ger-
man village, although every rich peasant has his own.
The oven is heated in succession by those who use it,
each person bringing his own wood. In autumn the flax,
after steeping or dew-rotting, is dried in this oven. The
tendency of modern times is to dispense with these efforts
to attain, by association, what was difficult or expensive
for individuals to establish. We cannot help thinking
that more may be said in defence of these common insti-
tutions than in praise of much that has superseded them.
The great article of consumption, bread, is, for instance,
enjoyed at least in purity by the aid of the village mill.
Cheapness of course is at present not attained by the
peasant, who never calculates the value of the time he
spends in procuring food, and Whocertainlydoesnot rank
the exemption of the females of his family from drudgery
amongst his luxuries. They are allotted their rull share of
outdoor work, as well as all the care of the household.
The expense incurred by labour lost, or inefficiently
applied, is, however, no result of the institutions which
demand the sacrifice under their present management.
It would only be necessary to place the mill, for
instance, on the footing of a private trading concern,
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
91
and to value the corn delivered and the meal re-
ceived in money, to make all waste apparent, and to
suggest the requisite means of economy. Were the
forests and grazing commons treated in the same manner
a like result would take place. The invaluable con-
trol retained by the villagers over their miller, of dis-
placing him for misconduct, would secure their meal from
the adulteration of which the inhabitants of towns so
justly complain. We cannot help thinking that a ju-
dicious development of this Germanvillage system would
secure to the people many of the advantages which they
hope, by what are called socialist or communist unions,
to attain, without exposing them to the dangers which
these innovations threaten. Foodof all kinds and cloth-
ing cheap and good might be secured by village shops,
or by the establishment of district magazines, on a plan
like that of the Apothecaries’ halls that are now found
in all German towns under the inspection of the govern-
ment. The adulteration of colonial wares, that is noto-
rious, forms as heavy a drain on the health as the over-
charge for retailing in small portions does upon the purses
of the great mass of the people in all countries. Their
resources might everywhere be made to go much further
than they now can. To secure these advantages no
revolution in political or religious institutions is requi-
site. A far more searching change in public opinion is,,
however, indispensable—the recognition of the fact that
the cheapness of necessaries is a private as well as a.
public benefit.
Like the moral side of the village system, the material
aspect and arrangements of the village itself, its houses,
its roads, its public and corporation edifices, have two