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AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
remarkably-shaped plough, light enough to be managed
upon steeps often presenting an angle of 500 to 60°.
Oxen are generally used for this work, and rye is the
grain that experience shows to thrive best in these
cleared thickets. The paring, burning, ploughing, and
sowing are again performed by each owner on his own
lot. Nothing is common amongst the proprietors but the
resolution to follow a peculiar system of cultivation, and
the general property in the soil, which is periodically
divided in the manner we have described. The year
after the rye is harvested the ground is left in repose,
and in the following or fourth year the whole ground is
covered with broom (genista). This curious crop is cut
close to the ground in the autumn, and does not re-
appear until the fourth year after the cutting of the
wood—that is to say, until twenty or eighteen years after
it has been gathered in, according to the term of years
which the w,ood is allowed to stand. The peasants
use the broom for thatching roofs and the w,eather-side
of their houses. The poorer people make it serve in
their, stables for litter for cows and horses—the thick
stems serving for fuel. After the broom, grass appears in
some abundance ; and the cattle of the proprietors, where
the wood is private property, or of the village, where
the wood belongs to one, are driven to graze among the
young trees. Many foresters are of opinion that this
practice is injurious to the young shoots : the peasants
maintain that their gain from the grazing exceeds their
loss in the wood-crop. It is probable that the broom is
kept down by the cows nibbling at the young shrub.
The yield from a morgen of “ hauberg,” as these woods
λgricultube on the Rhine.
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are termed, has been stated to us on good authority * to
be as follows :—
£ s. d.
A crop of rye, 12 bushels to the acre . 2 2 6
Ditto broom . . . . . . 0 10 0
Grazing, 10 years .....
Wood for charcoal, G08 cub. ft. per morgen
(in charcoal) , . . . 2 12 6
Bark, at 1 ton per morgen . . , 2 12 6
£7 17 6
It is probable that the grazing in the “ haubdbg'’ brings
in no gain to the peasants, who lose their dung that would
otherwise accumulate in their yards, besides the loss of
milk that ensues from driving the cows up the hill to
these indifferent pastures. The whole sum divided by
seventeen, the number of years in the rotation, gives
9s. 3cZ. per annum, as the return drawn from mountain
land too steep for the plough, and situated under a very
inclement climate.
The manner in which charcoal is burnt in the woods of
Siegen is the following :—A plot of ground of a circular
form is prepared by removing all stones from the surface,
and making it perfectly level. The bottom is stamped
hard, and if not raised by the accumulation of charcoal
dust from former burnings, must have a ditch draw,n
round it to carry off water. In the centre is fixed an
upright stake, round which the wood, split into pieces of
three inches or little more in diameter, is piled on end.
The wood is chosen as equal in sizes as possible, and is
placed piece by piece in the round, the longer pieces
IOto 12 feet high in the centre, and the shorter gradually
* Vorlander, quoted by Schenk in his ‘ Statistics of
Siegen.’