other country, prefer being a lady to an ordinary woman, and that she should not choose to be a cow at all. The English lady here again rejoined, "but of all cows, not a German cow." In England, that paradise of countries, the cow is a privileged and most luxurious animal. She lies down in green pastures, and by the still waters, at perfect leisure. In summer, she is half buried in plenty. In beautiful herds,—fair as those herds of Apollo, which fed in the meadows of Trinacria or of Asphodel,—they graze the most famous pastures in the world, and present to the eye of the lover of the country, one of the most lovely spectacles which the country can shew. They slowly rove from one portion of their extensive bounds to another, or lie down amid a blaze of golden and purple flowers and greenest grass, pictures of plenty, images and indicators of the farming wealth of England, which nothing can surpass. They stand in company, beneath the shade of drooping willows and polished alders, in the glittering passage of the brook at noontide, in groups rich enough to raise a Cuyp or Ruysdael from the dust. O Devon, or Hereford, Durham, Northumberland, Chester, or Gloucester, what country on the face of the earth can shew meadows like yours, with cattle like yours! What has this planet to exhibit of fat and milky like yours; enough to make the jolly heart of the English farmer proud, and big, and buttery, as it is? And what would you say, did you see the life of a cow in Germany? Here, for the most brilliant portion of the year, she is shut up in close prison. There are no green meadows, no running streams; no roving in sleek, round-bodied, dappled, and lowing herds for her. She is cooped up in a little dark stall. Old women and young women, and children with creels on their backs, go out with hooks, and cut rough grass and rampant weeds from under bushes in the woods, along the roadsides, and in the corners of fields, for her. Docks, chervil, rough sedge from the river's brink, anything that is green and eatable, is piled in baskets on old women's heads, and brought home to her. Shut up there, the very smell of aught green is enough to make her devour it. In summer, the lower leaves of the dick-rüben are stripped off for her; lucerne is grown for her, and odds and ends of cabbage, carrots, and turnip leaves fall to her share. She cannot rove in fields, for there are none. She cannot climb the hill-sides, for there climb the vines; and the plains are

full of corn, green crops, and tobacco, without a hedge to keep her from picking and stealing. When she comes out, it is to labour. With a fellow slave she is seized by the horns; a yoke is clapped on the back of her head, one end of which rests on hers, and the other on the head of her fellow: this is strapped fast, and secured to the pole of the wagon or the plough, and thus with her meek forehead fast in the stocks of labour, she is driven a-field, or to market, to perform all the work of her peasant-master. It is a pitiable sight to see a couple of these mild and gentle animals coming along with their heads hung down, and immovable in any direction, "for they must move together, if they move at all;" while behind comes the driver, whipping and bawling, "wisht! wisht!" or "yisht! yisht! oot! oot! oot! woa! woa! ah! uhoo!" and such like sounds. While she lives, this is the lot of the German cow! She has not the satisfaction of her milk flowing in warm and foamy streams into union with that of a score of her fellows, and thence arising piles of rich golden butter, and the splendid masses of Stilton or double Gloucester-such glorious productions as Stilton, Dunlop, or double Gloucester, never enter the region of a German peasant's imagination: on the contrary, her isolated stream goes to furnish only a butter, meagre, pallid, and poor, or cheeses formed in the palm of the hand, and dried on the outside of the window-sill, more like hens' eggs than anything beside. When she dies, too, miserable cow! she has not even the satisfaction of dying fat!

Yet the poor things do not, after all, look so much amiss. In his way, and according to his notions, the German farmer is, no doubt, kind to his cattle; and if he would but give them separate yokes, so that they could move their heads, as in a few instances is to be seen, they would not so much move our compassion.

The ploughs and harrows of the peasantry are as primitive as their wagons. The harrows are, many of them, entirely of wood, teeth and all. A single harrow is drawn by two cows. A boy goes before the cows, directly before their heads, and holding the middle of the yoke, leads them in the right line, while the man with a rope to the back part of the harrow, goes behind, shouting to the cows, and every now and then lifting the harrow by the rope, to clear the teeth of clods and rubbish. The plough is of the most

simple construction. A rounded pole of about two-thirds of the length of ours, for the beam; a pair of stilts, made out of a forked branch, and set very upright; a wooden mould-board, and a very simple flat share, and a pair of little wheels, on which the ploughbeam rests in front, and there is the plough of the German farmer! The whole is so simple and so rude, that any farmer brought up in a working agricultural school, and taught to handle his tools, could construct much better for himself. But these answer the purpose of the peasants. They are simple, they are cheap, and they are conveyed to and from the field without that lumber and cumber with which ploughs and harrows are taken to the field in England. There needs no cart to take them; the peasant takes off the little frame supporting the two front wheels; he then lays his plough sideways, and fastens the fore-end of the beam on the frame of the wheels; he then takes a prop formed of a forked bough thus,

which he lays over the thick end of the beam near the stilts; and one of the stilts on one side, and the foot of the plough on the other, resting on his prop or drag, fixes it firmly. Others, instead of this forked bough, have a little frame with a pair of wheels to put behind. A sort of carriage is thus formed, and the peasant lays his harrow on the top and drives to the field. When there, he has only to take off his harrow, remove the prop, turn his plough right way up, hook the beam to the little frame of the wheels, and go to work. When he has done, he takes his implements away in the same manner, with scarcely any trouble at all. This plan of conveyance of ploughs and harrows to the field, might also be adopted with advantage in England.

In those parts of Germany where large farms are common, especially in the north, of course both the apparatus, the horses, and the workmanship, are superior. Agricultural societies, as in

England, have promoted good tillage; and in many places, as in the plains of Brunswick and Weimar, you will see curious cyphers and flourishes on the new-ploughed lands, which the ploughmen have made with their ploughs, to shew their dexterity. Here, with this humble apparatus, the ploughing, of course, is not so deep, or so artistical. It would, by English farmers, be reckoned often poor scratching, and certainly would not win the prize at a ploughing match. Yet the peasant harrows and clears his land till it is in the nicest order, and it is admirable to see the crops. which he obtains. It is true that his green crops are well hoed, and laboured. The wheat grain on the Rhine plain is an exception. It is thin, and of a very light kind. The ear has commonly only two rows of corn, and the finest heads do not weigh more than thirty-six grains, chaff and all; each naked corn about one grain. This, I imagine, is not more than one-third of the average weight of English wheat; and, as the crops are thin, they probably do not yield more than one-fourth, if so much, as the English crops.

The village of Rohrbach presented to our eyes a singular aspect, and may be taken as a specimen of a German dorf in general. The houses had the same heavy look which the houses of the German dorfs commonly have, with plenty of old, tall roofs, and leaning gables turned towards the street; and great round-headed gateways in the farm-houses leading into their yards. The streets, as is usual, were long, and paved with huge uneven stones. One side of the street was left unpaved for a little brook to run down it, and over this bridges of great stones were laid to the houses. Down the other side of the street ran another little stream in a gutter, and in this the geese were sitting and forming dams with their bodies, in which they nibbled, and ducked, and washed themselves. The whole long street, from bottom to top, was full of these geese. Some of them, in flocks, were flying up and down, and making no little clangour. As usual, there were the brunnens spouting out their never-ceasing water into their great troughs, and women collected with their tubs about them, in full gossip; and the cows, released at this the peasant's dinner-time, half-past ten, from their yokes and labour, also crowding round the troughs to drink. Plenty of funny-looking children, and some other grown-up people completed the scene.

The children are odd little objects; thick, well fed, and with plenty of hair, in German fashion; the little girls, in bodices,

which seemed ready to

burst with plumpness, and

all, however small, with their hair in tails. The larger having their tails hanging down their backs, and the smaller, having theirs brought from the sides of their heads in hanging bows to their ears, over which they pass. Most of them were without shoes and stockings. The boys were going in groups, with creels on their backs, to the plain to collect grass for the cows.

One picturesque group, having amongst them a lad with his father's cocked hat on, we prevailed upon, by the offer of a kreutzer, the third of a penny, to stand and be sketched. The lads were wonderfully delighted at the idea of having their pictures taken, and the grownup people not much less so. We had soon the greater part of the village out, and all very merry watching us, as we sat on a tree lying in the street. While this was going on, a bauer or

two, passing along, in fun turned the lad's cocked hat hindbefore on his head. The old women, as they passed, had some jibe or other with the lads. "So, white head, are you having your