96
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
The value of the building is indicated by the thickness
of the timber shown to be employed in this framework.
Formerly, while timber was abundant and cheap, this style
of building was recommended by economy ; now stone,
which is almost always to be had, and bricks, are less
expensive, excepting to the owners of forests. The
house usually contains one or two sleeping-rooms, besides
a sitting-room and kitchen ; sometimes the same number
of rooms is found in an upper story. The roof is in-
variably lofty, and serves the purpose of storehouse and
barn. In its spacious cavity the thrashed corn, the hay,
and often the vegetable store for winter use are kept. The
housewife dries her clothes in winter on the cross-beams.
A cellar is invariably found in better houses, and in
general when a stranger is told that these are the abodes
of people little above the station of cottiers, he finds them
splendid. When he hears that these cottiers are the
Iandowmers and masters of the soil, he scarcely knows
how to estimate their position.
The expense of a small peasant’s house varies on the
Rhine from 500 to 2000 dollaɪs.
If of one story, with high roof, 3 rooms 500 dollars
Ditto, with roof and cellar, 3 rooms, I _
stable and barn, under the same roof I ”
TwostoriesjWithroofandcellar . . . 1200 „
Two stories, with stables and loft, and ∣
thrashing-barn between the cow-house > 2000 to 2500
and stable, under one roof . . . J
Γhe barn serves as a passage from which the cows
are fed during the greater part of the year. At the side
of the cowhouse the wall is open.
With the best will it is scarcely possible for a family
Agricultuke on the khine.
97
employed in manual labour to keep a spacious house
clean. Dirt accumulates in its passages, in its neglected
or too much thronged rooms. The extensive front
outside precludes all hope of constant neatness, and the
expensive luxury is ultimately abandoned in despair.
The distance at which these village houses lie from the
land their owners have to till, absorbs the spare moments
that might be employed with the broom, and the want
of plan in laying out building-plots, where every man
applies his own land to the purpose, constantly allows a
neighbour to foil the best-directed efforts.
These drawbacks to cleanliness and external neat-
ness are in part an effect of the German village system.
In Holland the small farm-houses, with the road neatly
clinkered in front, and unincumbered with useless build-
ings, offer a pleasanter picture to the English eye. But
in Holland, as in England, trade has promoted that
division of labour which is favourable to individual
comfort, and in Germanythis powerful lever has hitherto
had little influence. What is most pleasing in the
German village is that the school is an indispensable
requisite, and often a conspicuous ornament of the place.
The village school is not intrusted to any bed-ridden
dame or superannuated person of the male sex who
volunteers his services. The schoolmaster has been
regularly educated to fill his post at seminaries destined
to train teachers. He must have obtained his
certificates of qualification and good conduct before any
patronage can help him to his post ; and usually he spends
some years as assistant or usher in some school of larger
resort before he is intrusted with the management of even
the smallest village institution.