INDUSTRY OF THE RHINE. SERIES I. AGRICULTURE: EMBRACING A VIEW OF THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE RURAL POPULATION OF THAT DISTRICT. BY T. C. BANFIELD. LONDON: CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., LUDGATE STREET. - 1846. ( iii ) CONTENTS. i'nge CHAPTER I. 5 CHdPTER 11. 27 CHAPTER 111. 40 CHAPTER IV. 56 CHAPTER V. 76 CHAPTER VI. r . 99 CHAPTER VII. 118 CHAPTER VIII. 144 CHAPTER IX. .. 177 CHAPTER X. 205 CHAPTER XI. 224 AGRICULTURE OK THE RHINE. CHAPTER I. AMONGSTthe many thousands who yearly flock to the banks of the Rhine there are not a few for ulhom the sacial activity, the condition, the wants and wishes, of the . people they mingle with are as attractive objects as the picturesque scenery and romantic legends of the far- famed river. The figures in the landscape are its pro- minent feature for the deeper observer. For such tra- vellers the following volume is written, fbr from such its author does not fear to be rebuked because be reads a moral in a The noble arch in proud decay," where others choose only to enjoy its scenic e.Rect. Nor does he anticipate from them the supposition that be- cause he points to the effects of shady and sunny sites on the productions of the soil, he has no soul for the glow- ing tints of the sunlit stream, or the majestic gloom with which night invests the precipices that overhang it. Having himself found leisure both to enjoy the beauties with which nature has clothed this enchanting river, and to commune with those who dwell upon its banks, he deems it no si~perfluoustask to invite any who have taste or leisure to study more than scenery as they pass along ; to inquire with him respecting the account to which the G AGRICULTURE OS THE RHINE. A.GBICULTURE ON THE RHINE. 7 people turli the advantages of soil and climate with or willow so familiar to us from the landscapes of the which they are endowed. In this volume we propose to Dutch masters, give way to continued plantations of afford the inquiring traveller, or such as are not less osiers and wave-washed banks, that seem to indicate a inquiringly disposed because they stay at home, a clue to change of no. pleasing kind. The transition is on both the varied map of agricultural activity which the banks banks sudden, from a people whom trade early attracted of the Rhine unfold. A greater variety of objects and to the banks of the river and familiarised with its utility, modes of cultivation is assuredly presented by no other to one almost exclusively agricultural, which long looked region of equal space. In no country has the well-being wholly to the land for nourishment and power. The of the people been more intimately interwoven with its face of the country has also changed materially by the agricultural policy and prosperity than in Gcrmany. time the boat in which you ascend the Rhine reaches Few tours present a larger sphere of observation to the the Prussian boundary. The level of the back country landowner, the farmer, and the statesman, than that has risen considerably above the stream, which may here wl~icli,with the aid of Rhenish steamers and railroads, chafe against the bank without, as in Holland, endan- he can accomplish in the space of a few weeks. With gering the lives and property of the inhabitants of whole these preliminary observations we enter at once upon our provinces. This change is not perceptible from the task of tracing the peasant to his cottitge, the lord to his river except to the practised eye of the geographer, castle, and both to the great rnart of the world, at which who recognises, in the circumstance that the stream is all are buyers and sellers, not alone of produee and ma- confined within a single bed, the existence of rocky nuftctures, but of consideration, influence, comfort, and strata in the banks, and suspects that it has eaten its way independence. He is but a sorry calculator who does through the lower offsets of some mountain-chain. On riot look beyond the money price at which he buys and the right bank, i. e. on the traveller's left as he ascends sells, as we shall have frequent occasion to show in the the river, the rise is trifling, and a well-cultivated strip course of this tour. We shall often have to test the value of land flanking the river, formerly a portion of the of the epithets dew and clleap; and perhaps no other duchy of Cleves, intervenes between the Rhine and the district can so fully illustrate how relative the notions immense heaths which separate Holland from Germany, are that attach to those words. to whose extent, untraversed for centuries by roads, the The entrance into Germany by the Rhine presents Dutch are indebted for their independent nationality. nothing very attractive to the eye. Long befijre the The want of roads in the inland German states gave traveller reachcs the Prussian frontier, the neat farm- an early pre-eminence to those districts that commanded houses that in Holland line the carefully walled or hs- water-navigation, and amon;;+?, the navigable rivers of cined banks of the great stream, gay in their shutters Germany the Rhine was prominent. The Lower Rhine, and doors of red or green, ancl grouped with the coppice as that portion of the river lying between the Seven 8 AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE. AGRICULTURE OK THE RHINE. 9 Hills and the sea is called, and the Middle Rhine as potentates whose alliance is courted and whose enmity from Mayence to the Drachenfels, forrned long the vir- is dreaded by their reigning contemporaries. These tual northern boundary of the Roman empire, beyond districts all bclorig to the region ofthe Rhine, or are so which few or rio permanent settlements were made. contiguous to it as to be influenced by the events of The Rhine was, however, fully appreciated by the Ro- which its basin was the scene. The Counts of flaps- mans as a grand road for warlike and commercial opera- burg-, of Nassau, and of Luxemburg successively ascended tions, and its banks teem with relics of that stirring age. the Imperial throne. Civic independence reared its The Teutonic tribes that succeeded the Romans as con- banner triumphantly on the banks of the Rhine, and the querors or immigrants found in the roads, harbours, and Rhenish League is a no less interesting historical event other constructions of their predecessors, a foundation of than the more famous Confederacy of the Hanse Towns, power far more valriable than the chivalrous daring to in which the cities of the Lower Rhine, especially which they usually ascribed their success. The rise of Cologne, played a conspicuous part. That the mechanical the second line of Frankish kings has been described and refined arts also flourished at an early period in these by M. Guizot as resulting from the conquests over the cities is well known. Neustrian or Western Franks achieved by the Austrasian The portion of Prussia by which the traveller on the or Eastern Frankish tribes. To judge from the acts of Rhine enters Germany from Holland was formerly the Charlemagne and his favourite places of abode, that Duchy of Cleves. The high road from Nymwegen to monarch knew well from what source the Austrasians Cologne follows the heights that recede from the left and his family drew their might. Tlie ruins of his im- bank of the Rhine and leave a narrow strip of low land l~erialcastle are now scarcely to be traced at Zngelheim (originally marsh, and afterwards enclosed), which is on the Middle Rhine, and Aix-la-Chapelle contains but occasionally inundated, or what is called Polderland in his grave and the cathedral which he founded ; yet are the language of the country. This narrow strip formed these 1.clics sufficient to attest the importance attributed the county of Mors. It has been already observed that a by that discerning monarch to the grcat water-road that tract of land stretching along the right bank of the river connects the Alps with the German Ocean.* fi-om the frontier of Holland to the mouth of the Lippe The period that marks the rise of the grcat vassals of also belonged formerly to Cleves. The farmer who fol- the German empire sliows us the Earls of Flanders, the lows other than political boundaries still distinguishes be- Dukcs of' Brabant, the Lords of EPainault and Cleves, tween the heights and the lowlands of Cleves. In the * Napoleon is said to have entertained the idea of re- former tract, which is traversed by the high road from building the palace at Ingelheim, aud we believe that the Cologne to Nymwegen, that owed its original construc- ILoj a1 Lil~raryat Paris contaiils the plans and elevations of tion in all probability to the Romans, trade has had its tile intended p~latinm,comprising even tlle decoratioiis of the interior. usual effect upon the farmer's calculations. Estates are 10 AGRICULTL'RE ON THE RHISE. AGRICULTURE ON THE RHIEE. 1 1 not of puny dimensions, because too small a farm would &ildren of a family ; but the facilities for trade which not pay well: they are not large, because there is con- this district enjoys cause the junior members to prefer siderable demand for dairy produce, rape-seed, flax, leaving the land to a brother, who looks to f'arming, tobacco, and other products that remunerate when cul- while they seek their livelihood elsewhere.