170
4 Gricultuke on the bhine.
those who cannot comprehend the loss that ensues from
carting the green clover two miles every day to the stall-
fed cows. We are afraid that their mode of indemnifying
themselves by reducing the quality of the milk, will be
found to savour more of urban than of rural habits.
Latterly too an attempt has been made to protect the
bakers by taxing the bread of the outlying bakers, a fact
that is symptomatic of civic or at least of corporation
progress ; but which, with so nomadic a population as
Wiesbaden can boast, is rather a dangerous experiment.
These remarks are not intended as local gossip. The
same calculations have been made and acted upon at
Vienna and Berlin, that we find only in imitation amongst
the more recent civic authorities OfWiesbaden ; and every
Prussian and Austrian village presents the same agricul-
tural features that we have traced at the foot of the
Taunus.
Although no prescribed rotation of crops is now
followed by the Wiesbaden farmers, yet the recent ex-
istence of the village system is testified by the absence of
enclosures, and the regular appearance of the parish
shepherd, who may be seen guiding his scanty flock as
close as he can to the greenest fallow plots. His dog,
whσ seems to share his cares, jumps about and barks as if
loath to grudge the poor animals the stolen nibble at
the beet-root leaves, or the clover-ley, that indicate the
improvements which are rendering the services of both
superfluous. But although shorn of the dignity of an
official personage, and only the servant of the man who
fawns the much diminished right of grazing, he is ame-
nable to the town council for all depredations committed
by his flock. The peasant burgess may therefore smoke
Agrtcultuke ox the rhine.
171
his pipe and drink his it schoppen ” at home, compara-
tively sure that the wisp of straw which he has set up on
a stick to denote that he means to use his fallow himself
will be respected, and that no more of the border of
his quarter-of-an-acre field will be nibbled than custom
has prescribed to be “ law.” The owner of fruit-trees is
differently circumstanced, and the limit to which these
pretty ornaments of a Rhenish farm can be extended are
fixed by the walking powers of a few gardes champêtres,
very inefficient protection, as the reader will suppose,
against the youth or the loose population of the surrounding
country. The abundance and good quality of the fruit
in this neighbourhood have already been noticed. In
Frankfort-on-the-Main cider is a favourite beverage,
although the drink sold under that name would surprise
the most homely drinker of the valleys of the Severn or
the Blackwater. It is strange that such excellent mate-
rials should be used so perversely. But the fact is that
fruit in these parts is used at meals like vegetables, and
the apples, pears, and plums, dressed, fresh, or after
drying, are a never-failing accompaniment of the roast
joint at table. Of their use as a substitute for butter we
have already spoken. The malter of apples or pears at
harvest time (nearly equal to four bushels) sells for
3 or 4 florins (5s. to 6s. 8(7.). The peasant-like calcula-
tions of the small landowners about Wiesbaden are most
strikingly illustrated by the absence of all cultivation of
early vegetables and table fruit, for both of which the
climate is favourable, and the visitors would gladly pur-
chase. The vegetables are daily brought to market from
the other side of the Rhine.
In this respect the inhabitants of Mayence and Frank-