Treatise on Agriculture. SECT. II. Of the actual state of Agriculture in Europe.

8. Holland, though essentially commercial has, from causes rarely occurring, become also highly agricultural. To the descendants of Dutchmen, the following description of her industry, in this respect, cannot but be acceptable. It is from the pen of an excellent judge and faithful narrator.[1]

"Their rotation of crops, always begins with the culture either of some leguminous plant or profitable root, and generally with the potato, as the best preparative of the ground. Whatever may be the grain which follows, whether wheat, rye, &c. &c. it is generally sown with red clover; and where it is not, the stubble is ploughed in immediately after harvest, and a crop of turnips taken and either consumed on the ground or housed for the winter. A single department (that of Zealand) obtains by the culture of madder alone, an annual profit of six millions of florins; while that of Brabant boasts its twenty thousand bee-hives; in a word, this commendable nation, upon an extent of surface not exceeding seventeen hundred square leagues, (the greater part of which has been redeemed from the ocean) counts two hundred and forty-three thousand horses, seven hundred and sixty thousand horn cattle, about a million of sheep, from ten to twelve thousand goats, four hundred and eighty-nine thousand hogs, and about three millions of poultry, of every species. Their stock of manure is necessarily great, and is both well understood and well managed."

9. The same causes, physical and moral, operate against the existence of a productive agriculture in Denmark and Sweden—severity of climate, poverty of soil, and vassalage of tenants.[2]—Their resources are also alike, and exist principally in manufactures and commerce, and in mines, forests and fisheries. The former boasts fine pasturage and cattle, in Holstein.

10. Under the common name of Germany, we include Prussia, Saxony, Austria, Wurtemburg, and Bavaria, and shall say a few words of each, calculated to give a general idea of their husbandry. It was not to be expected that the great Frederick of Prussia (so devoted to national glory and strength) would disregard the interest of agriculture; and the less so, as in theory he considered it "Les mamelles de l'elat." We accordingly find him employed in draining marshes of great extent,[3] in filling them with industrious colonists, and in converting barren sands into fertile fields, by placing his capital in the midst of them. But amongst these good works, he forgot that the hands of the labourer, to be efficient, must be free; he found the peasants slaves, and left them such.

The Saxon peasant, on the other hand is free and protected by the law; he holds his farm on lease, which he sells or transmits to his children at will: and this is the principal cause of the flourishing state of Saxon agriculture. In Lusatia, a different legislation produces different effects; but for some years past, the government and great proprietors have concurred in changing the vassalage of the peasants into a mild and salutary dependence. Saxony is remarkable for its grain products, and Lusatia for its stock—the latter counts four hundred thousand head of sheep of the merino race.

Geographers give to Austria and her dependencies 1965 leagues in circumference. In a surface like this, there is necessarily a great variety, as well of climate as of soil; but in general, both are favourable to agriculture. "In the districts of the Inn, of Lower Stira, of Istria, and of Carniola, the land is of good quality, well cultivated and very productive. In the last, they have two crops in the year; sowing buck-wheat on wheat or rye stubble, and millet on that of hemp and flax.—They every where cultivate Indian corn, and in Styria (as in Virginia) it forms the ordinary bread of the country." In Bohemia, Moravia, and Galitia,[4] the soil is uncommonly rich, and under proper management would be very productive. Austrian Silesia is less fitted for the production of grain, but excels in forage and cattle. Hungary, Transylvania and Croatia, abound in every species of agricultural produce. Their flocks and pasturage are not inferior to those of the Ukraine; and wheat, buck-wheat, Indian corn, millet, rice, hemp, flax and tobacco, yield immense harvests to very small degrees of labour. Yet is agriculture far from being in a flourishing condition!—Writers on political economy ascribe this fact principally to two causes—

1st. The degradation and oppression of the labouring part of the community; and

2d. The want of convenient commercial outlets for the produce of the soil.

We shall find in Hungary a striking illustration of the correctness of this opinion. "The Populus Hungaricus," is divided into four estates, the magnates, the nobles, and the clergy, who possess all the lands, and the "misera contribuens plebs," who (besides tithes, rents and corvees) pay all the taxes. This wretched populace is composed of the burghers and the peasantry, of which there are three kinds—slaves for life, temporary slaves, and a third sort called liberæ emigrationis, who, as their name indicates, have loco motive powers and rights. Of the condition of this people, since the year 1764, (and before that period it was much worse) we may form an idea from the edict of Maria Theresa, called the urbarium, or law of contracts between landlord and tenant, by which it is declared, that corporal punishment (inflicted by the master for insolent words or conduct) shall not exceed twenty-four strokes with a cane for a man, and the same number with a switch for a woman. Nor is the commercial condition of this people better than the civil; they are not only obliged to take from Austria many things which they could have had in other places of a better quality and at a lower price, but they are also compelled to carry to Vienna the products of their own soil and labour, where their sale is embarrassed and their value lessened by heavy and oppressive taxes. The same remark applies to Galitia, whose natural outlet is the Vistula, or the Nieper; but of these she is not permitted to avail herself, and, like her sister kingdoms, is compelled to seek the markets furnished by the Danube and Trieste. "The consequences are obvious—the tenant works only to satisfy hunger, and the landlord is satisfied with little more than 'victum et vestitum.'"[5]

The amount of lands annually cultivated in Bavaria, is one million one hundred and sixty-five thousand acres, which produce about six millions of bushels of grain, of which two millions are surplus. The Palatinate, (one of the dependencies of Bavaria) is also very productive. The route between Heidelberg and D'Armstadt, called the Bergstrass, traverses one of the finest districts of Germany, and perhaps of Europe; where are seen extensive vineyards, vast meadows and fertile fields, producing wheat, barley, tobacco, madder, rhubarb, turnips, &c. &c. In the year 1799, all the electorial possessions within the circle of Bavaria, contained 199,000 horses, 160,000 oxen, 465,000 cows, 961,000 sheep, 320,000 hogs, and 378,000 goats. Yet are the Bavarians, compared with the inhabitants of the north of Germany, half a century in the rear. The people are, extremely ignorant and fantastical: like the people of Rome and Lisbon, they sacrifice much time to processions and fetes, and like them also are slaves of the vilest appetites. Debauchery is no where more flagrant than in Munich.[6]

Wurtemburg is ranked among the most fertile and well cultivated countries of Germany. The mountainous parts produce potatoes, oats, hemp and flax; the less hilly abound in wheat, spelts, rye, buck-wheat, Indian corn and barley; and in the vallies we find tobacco, madder and vineyards, in which the grapes of France, Cyprus, and Persia succeed perfectly. Apples, pears, &c. are of common product and excellent quality.[7]

11. It has been justly remarked, that to know the state of husbandry in any country, you have but to examine the instruments employed, the succession of crops, and the condition of labourers.—Tried by these tests, the agriculture of Russia will be found to be in a state of great degradation.—The plough (called soka) which is commonly used, is very light, of simple construction, and but calculated to enter the ground one inch and a half; the harrow consists of one or more young pine trees (whose branches are cut off about eight inches from the stem) steeped in water to add to their weight, and tied together. With such miserable instruments, each drawn by a single horse, the farmer scratches the ground, and without always covering the seed, which is no doubt the reason that in dry seasons their harvests are very bad.[8] In the best soil their succession of crops is of eight years—two in barley, two in oats, two in winter rye, and two in spring rye. Lands of less fertility are sown two years out of three, and mountainous tracts one year in three, when they are abandoned to weeds, until rest shall have reinstated them. "To manure them would, in the opinion of a Russian peasant, make them poorer;[9] and therefore he suffers his dunghill to accumulate into a nuisance, while he goes on to clear and exhaust new fields." "The grains raised are rye, spelts, barley, millet and oats, which, from want of sufficient roads and markets, are often low priced; as are horned cattle and horses: an ox selling for a ruble and a half, a cow for one ruble, and a horse for three rubles."[10] To this wretchedness we must add, (what perhaps occasions much of it) that throughout the civilized part of Russia, the labours of agriculture are performed by slaves confounded with the soil, and bought and sold with it. In a great portion of the northern section of this vast empire, agriculture is unknown; and the chase, the fisheries, cattle and rein-deer, furnish the only means of subsistence.

(To be continued.)