128
λgeicγlture on the Rhine.
telligcnt is however limited to speculation on a very-
small scale, and nowhere is the true trading principle
of drawing a small, but sure, profit from undertakings
on an extended scale acknowledged as the golden rule
in Germany.
The remedy for the present state of things in Siegen
is now thought to be in the construction of a railroad,
connecting this mining country with the coal district on
the Ruhr. The notion of any gain resulting from regu-
lating the price of fuel by artificial means will be dis-
pelled when this is effected, and all may return to a
wholesome state of active production.
A singular contrast is presented in another branch of
industry, for which Siegen has long been justly cele-
brated, and which, although it is impossible to protect it
by restrictions, yet forms a pursuit that the people of
Siegen are passionately fond of. It is not improbable
that the art of laying down and managing irrigated mea-
dows was introduced by some of the artisans who taught
the people the mode of making steel. The origin of both
arts points to Italy, and it is likely that some prince of
Nassau, who was more than a mere Condottiere, brought
them with him as the best trophy of some successful cam-
paign in the fertile plains of Lombardy. Brescia was as
probably the parent-seat of one of these arts, as Como or
Lodi may have been the school in which the other was
learnt. History is silent as to the original introduction
of irrigation, which until lately was peculiar in Ger-
many to the district of Siegen. The climate there is any-
thing but a sunny one. From the sixteenth century,
however, there exist laws and regulations respecting the
rights of the owners of water-courses intended to fertilize
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
129
meadows, which evince that the care of the government
at that early period embraced this great agricultural im-
provement.
At present not only the whole of the valley of the
Upper Sieg, but all the side vales and glens that issue into
it, have their bottoms carpeted with beautiful verdure,
affording the owners a rich crop, and (after the outlay for
laying down has been made) with an inexpensive mode of
cultivation. To drain these glens for the purpose of ex-
tracting any other crop from their chilled soils wrould be
attended with enormous expense. By simply adopting
the oriental plan of letting the water run over the sur-
face, the most productive crops of grass are obtained.
The same principle applied in Holland has furnished
that country with a rich and never-failing revenue de-
rived from dairy produce, which no art could extract
from the rich but humid soil in any other shape. Nor
is the traveller left in doubt as to the natural or artificial
origin of these meadows on the banks of the Sieg. The
greensward is everywhere intersected by innumerable
canals, the broadest of which forming the water-courses
vary from three to five feet. These catch the water of
the river or of its tributary brooks at the highest possible
level, and carry it along the hill-side, or over an elevated
bed through the centre of the meadow. Out of this are
led the small cuts, nine inches deep, and nine to twelve
inches broad, which carry the portion allotted to each
bed in the required direction. Bed is the proper term
here, and not field ; for although the absence of fences
gives to a whole valley the appearance of belonging to
one proprietor, yet it is not easy to imagine a more
minute division of the soil, and more exclusive proprie-