156
AGRICULTURE OX THE RHINE.
poor man than the day’s work with his horse and cart.
Wood ashes that have been drenched for washing are
considered good manure for rape-seed. Gypsum is found
to act most beneficially on clover, Iucern, peas, tares,
and turnips. The gypsum is strewn is moist weather,
about the middle of April.
A common rotation on these farms on the left bank is
the following ;—
1 Fallow with dung 12 to 16 loads to the morgen.
2 Rape-seed.
3 Winter barley.
4 Wheat.
5 Clover with gypsum, 2 cwt. to the morgen.
6 Oats.
The second rotation is sometimes varied ;
1 Buckwheat.
2 Wheat with dung.
3 Rye.
4 Oats.
On the sandy soil further from the river ;
1 Fallow with dung.
2 Rye.
3 Clover limed and soiled with ditch clearings.
4 Wheat with dung.
5 Buckwheat.
6 Rye with dung.
7 Oats.
In this last rotation, poverty of soil, and distance from
markets for dairy produce, are easily traced. It likewise
points to small holdings and the poor economy of pea-
sants ; all of which may again furnish the inquisitive with
a correct clue to former political subdivisions and the
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
157
chequered mass of religious and educational Systemswhich
this land presented in the olden time. So surely are the
sins of the fathers visited on the children.
It is certainly strange that the village peasantry, the
holders and owners of the smallest allotments that we
have described, should, in the immediate vicinity of the
Iargerfarms, where so much intelligence is displayed in the
management of the soil, present the following curious pic-
ture. We extract it the more willingly from a well-known
author rather than describe what we have often witnessed,
that we may not incur the reproach of being supercilious
strangers lowering the character of the peasantry of a
foreign land. In reading the following description of
the district of the Lower Moselle, by Schwerz, it must
be remembered that hedges for inclosure are unknown :—
“ Stall-feeding is general in the Moselle district. In
the autumn alone is there some pasturage on the stubbles,
and when the aftergrass is cut the meadows are grazed
for a couple of hours daily. It is curious to see how the
quantity of cattle are fed which are kept Onthenumerous
little parcels of land.
“ In the spring the women and children range the
fields, cut the young thistles and nettles, dig up the roots
of the couch-grass, collect weeds of all kinds, and strive
to turn them to account. What is thus scraped together
is well washed, mixed with cut straw and chaff, and, after
boiling water has been poured over the whole, it is given
to the cattle. A little later, when the weeds grow stronger,
they arc given unmixed as fodder. The Iucern comes
at length to help, and then the clover, which lasts until
the autumn, when "cabbage-leaves and turnips are to be
had. When these are scarce potato-haulm is taken to help