It is a popular mistake that Switzerland, industrially, occupies a stagnant condition in the scale of nations, and exists for picturesqueness alone. It is equally a mistake to think that its main staples are wood-carving and hotel-keeping. The circumstances which so long prohibited any advance in commerce and agriculture are to be found in the peculiarities of the physical character of the country and the absence of capital. Switzerland had no sources of mineral nor, under the conditions of former times, of agricultural wealth. It could not maintain a large population on its own resources; nor could it have cities, the inhabitants of which, either like those of Flanders, by the easy terms upon which they might get the raw materials, could have manufactured for others; or like those of Venice, Genoa, and of the cities of Holland, might have become common carriers. They could have had no commerce, except with their surplus cheese. The amount of this that could be spared was so small, and the transportation so difficult, that but little could be made of it, and the whole of this little was wanted for the necessaries of life,—such as the useful metals, etc.,—which the Swiss were obliged to procure from abroad. There was no margin for saving, and so there could be no accumulations of capital. For long ages the most assiduous industry could supply the Swiss with only the necessaries of life, and barely with them, even when aided by the surplus cheese. Agriculturists in a rude way, they lived on the land which supported them and their families, and feeling no further pressing need, their untrained intelligence could form no conception of the advantages of the social union and commercial interdependence of a more civilized state of society. This condition no longer exists. By the aid of new means of transportation and communication, and by the substitution of machinery for manual labor, the motive power for which nature furnishes in abundance, the people are becoming prosperous and capital is accumulating. For many ages the poorest country in Europe, it is rapidly progressing towards becoming, in proportion to the amount of its population, one of the richest. The position taken to-day by Switzerland in the trade and commerce of the world is remarkable, when the various natural obstacles are considered,—such as absence of raw material for its industries, great distance from the sea-coast, with costly and difficult means of transportation, and restrictive customs established by neighboring countries. It does not possess a single coal-mine, canal, or navigable stream. It is practically dependent for all its metals on foreign supply. Asphalt is the only raw mineral product the export of which exceeds the import, and this is found only in the Canton of Neuchâtel, where the output is very large and of a superior quality. Inland, without ships or seaport, and therefore deprived of the advantages of direct exportation and importation, its commerce must be effected through the four conterminous countries of France, Germany, Austria, and Italy. Therefore, while every mart in the world is familiar with its manufactures, it is almost ignored in the commercial statistics of nations. The high protective policy so universally adopted by the neighboring countries, where for a long time the best markets for Swiss goods were found, has forced the Swiss manufacturers to extend their trade to transmarine markets, involving not only a vast amount of competition, but far more risk and uncertainty attending sales than in doing business in markets nearer home. Then four-fifths of the Swiss exports to countries other than the contiguous ones consist of silk goods, embroideries, and watches, which may be classed, in a general sense, as luxuries; and, in seeking a foreign market, encounter the highest duty. On the other hand, its importations are cotton, machinery, cereals, food-supply, and raw materials for its manufacturers,—that will not admit of a corresponding heavy import duty. The remedy heretofore partially found in special commercial treaties has become almost futile by the rapid blocking of the provisions of the “most favored nation” clauses. These have practically lost their purpose and force by each party to the treaty persisting in the enlargement and accentuation of its own customs provisions. In an address recently delivered by the President of the Confederation, at a national agricultural exposition, referring to the depression of that industry, he said: “The political existence of Switzerland is at present not threatened or endangered from any quarter, but it is different with its economical existence, which causes us from day to day increased solicitude on account of the increase of unjust burdens imposed at all our neighboring frontiers. The first to feel this condition were our manufacturers, who demanded a tariff of retaliation, and now the farmers complain that they are suffering from a denial of the same protection. Indeed, we are to-day the witnesses of an eager race in the parliaments of many countries to raise the duties on importations from their neighboring states until the wall is so high that nothing can pass. Is this to be the grand coronation of the labor and civilization of the nineteenth century,—the century of steam, electricity, the piercing of the St. Gothard, the Suez and Panama canals? No! Such a condition cannot endure. Let me express the hope that the time will come when, from the excess of the evil, good will result; that the people will realize that such a condition leads to general poverty, while liberty of exchange is the surest foundation of general prosperity.”
With these great natural and artificial obstacles to contend with, Switzerland is nevertheless a commercial and manufacturing state. Its industries are prosperous and show a constantly-increasing vitality and importance, and its citizens are growing rich and famous in the commerce of Europe. Its silks, ribbons, embroideries, braided straws, watches, and cheese go to every quarter of the globe. There is no state in Europe in which there is so great a general trade per head of population. The commerce of Italy, with a population nearly ten times greater, is only about double that of Switzerland; and the difference between Austrian and Swiss commerce is even still more remarkable. The silk industry is the oldest in Switzerland, being already established at Zurich and Basel in the latter half of the thirteenth century. Ticino is the only Canton where there are filatures for reeling the cocoon into silk. Italy, China, and Japan are the great sources of supply of raw materials to the silk manufacturers,—the former supplying nearly four-fifths of all the organzines; of the raw silk, the supply comes largely from Yokohama. Cotton began to be manufactured in Switzerland in the fifteenth century, and power-loom weaving was introduced in 1830. Twisting, spinning and white-goods weaving, and cotton printing are of very considerable importance. Embroidered goods have attained a great development, and furnish a heavy export trade from eastern Switzerland, especially in the Cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell. Little of this beautiful work is now done by hand, machinery having reached marvellous perfection. Aniline colors, the wonderful dyes which the skill of modern chemists has evolved from bituminous tar, and the manufacture of flavoring extracts, from the products of coal-tar and petroleum, constitute a thriving export business at Basel. Watchmaking is essentially a Swiss industry, and has been the most important industry in Geneva since 1587, and by a combination with jewellers, making a union between mechanical industry and art, has given Geneva a world-wide reputation.[76] Watchmaking is done entirely by piece-work, and sixty master workmen are required to make a single watch. The work is divided among so many different persons, each one of whom makes a specialty of one particular piece, and spends his life making duplicates of this. The work is performed in the people’s houses, the fronts of which present an uninterrupted row of windows arranged without intermediate spaces, as the object is to admit all the light possible. Every member of the family assists in some way. When the house is put to rights, the wife drags a table to the window, gets out her magnifying-glass, and goes to work on a watch-spring.[77] If there be a son or daughter, each produces his quota. These different parts, when gathered up by the watch merchant, are found to fit each its special place with mathematical niceness.
The Swiss federal custom-house returns classify all imports and exports under three chief heads, viz., “live-stock,” “ad valorem goods,” and “goods taxed per quintal.” No returns are published of the value of either the imports or exports, but only the quantities are given. The principal imports are grain and flour, cattle for slaughter, sugar, coffee, fruit, poultry, eggs, and wine; all being articles of food. Of textile stuffs, silk, cotton, and woollen. Other articles include chemicals for industrial purposes, leather and leather goods, hosiery and ready-made clothes, iron and iron ware, live animals, coal and coke, other metals and hardware, including machinery, wood, furniture, petroleum, gold and silver bullion for coinage. Cattle, horses, wheat, and flour are imported from Austria-Hungary; raw cotton from the United States and Egypt; manufactured cotton goods from England; wool chiefly from Germany; coal from the Rhine districts of Germany. The principal exports are: textile products, watches and jewelry, cheese and condensed milk, wine and beer, machinery, cattle, hides and skins, dye-stuffs, furniture and wood carvings. The Swiss tradesmen are shrewd in their bargains, honest in their reckonings, contented with small gains and small savings. They are the Scotch of continental Europe.
In Switzerland we find the primitive husbandry of the mountain flourishing side by side with modern industrial commercial enterprise. Of much Swiss agriculture it is still true, “pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit.” The minute division of the land and the cheapness of labor do not justify the general use of modern labor-saving agricultural implements. For cutting, threshing, and winnowing purposes the scythe, flail, and winnowing-basket are used. The scythe is apparently an exact counterpart of that which is seen in the hands of “Time” in the school primer. The plough would adorn an archæological collection; requiring four horses and three men to work it, and cutting only one furrow. Instead of the harrow or cultivator, a number of women and children, armed with clubs, go over the ground after it is ploughed, and pulverize the surface. Swiss soil is but little desecrated by the “devil-driven machinery of modern times;” and the Swiss farmer has been equally faithful in regarding the first and disregarding the second advice given in the distich of Pope,—
“Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”[78]
The peasant farmer must needs apply a high order of management and economy. This economy must be discerning, and he cannot take readily to new ideas that do not assure him a better result for his hard-earned money. This close farming yields very fair results to the small owners, who, with their sons and daughters, have an interest in the soil and a taste for the business. However, each change in the way of modern improvement in its turn is fighting for establishment. The old methods have prescription, tradition, custom to support them; the new, utility and necessity. In the early stage, what was needed for each Swiss peasant farmer was a little bit of land, a cow or two, a spade, a manure basket, and a wife to carry it. This was the caterpillar stage. They are very gradually passing into the butterfly stage. They are beginning to evolve the capacity for collecting and turning to account capital, the distilled essence of all property without which the land cannot be made much of now. Life to-day does not require the tough hide, the strong sinews, the gross stomach, the adstriction to a single spot of the old life; on the contrary, a vastly enlarged mobility, both of body and mind, a readiness for turning anything to account, and for entering on any opening have become necessary. If what is wanted and needed cannot be found at home, be willing and disposed to go seek it elsewhere.
Owing to great difference in elevation of the surface, there is much diversity in the production of Switzerland. In the valleys the summer heat is tropical, while the surrounding heights are robed in perpetual snow. “From the lowest level on the southern slope of the Alps, say about six hundred and fifty feet, where the lemon, the almond, and the fig ripen in the open air, and thence ascend to an elevation of nine thousand five hundred feet, where every vestige even of the most primitive artificial cultivation ceases, we might trace nearly every species of vegetable growth known in Europe.”[79]
Cereals are grown up to three thousand six hundred feet; rye succeeds up to five thousand nine hundred feet in the Grisons, and to six thousand five hundred feet on the sunny slopes of Monte Rosa and Pontresina. Irrespective of exceptional cases we may say that cultivation ceases at three thousand nine hundred and fifty feet, and above this height all forms of vegetation are small and poor, consisting of low scrubs, stunted firs, and mournful larches. As a general rule, vegetation reaches a higher point in eastern and southern Switzerland than in the northwest. It is therefore not the absolute height which determines the boundary of the growth of plants so much as the disposition and form of the mountains and valleys. Another point affecting materially the whole phytological covering of a country is the nature of the geological formation on which the plants grow. One-half of the country lies above the region of agriculture. The total area of land under cultivation in Switzerland is, in figures, 5,378,122 acres; of which, 1,715,781 acres, or 31.9 per cent., are meadow land, and 1,962,656 acres, or 36.5 per cent., are pasturage. The arable land covers an area of 1,533,093 acres, or 28.5 per cent., of the whole; vineyards 87,714 acres, or 1.6 per cent.; while the ground devoted entirely to gardening purposes may be estimated at about 78,870 acres, or 1.5 per cent. The area of cultivated land is steadily diminishing, as the meadows prove more remunerative. Good arable land, being so limited, commands a very high price, from $300 per acre to $1500 and $2000 per acre for choice vineyard lands. About one-half of the arable land is sown in grain; the remainder being used for potatoes, turnips, green maize, clover, vetch, etc. Both the federal and cantonal governments have shown an active interest in fostering and promoting the agricultural prosperity of the country; and an agricultural bureau is attached to one of the federal departments at Bern. The cultivation of the grape is closely identified with Swiss agricultural interests, and with few exceptions the hill-sides on the Lake of Geneva have been since the earliest periods of history planted with the generous vine. There exist records to prove that some of these vineyards have been bearing uninterruptedly for five hundred years. The reader will readily suppose that the materials have been often renewed. One above another these vineyards extend along the lake to the height of two thousand feet. They are formed with persevering industry upon these precipitous slopes by means of parallel walls, whose narrow intervals are filled with earth that has been carried up by the peasants in baskets upon their backs from below; and in the same way they must every season be abundantly covered with manure. These successive terraces are reached by steps frequently cut with infinite labor in the hard rock, and with every economy of the land. Every inch of the ground is valuable, because only on the side of certain hills will these vines come to perfection. These lands, after being purchased at so high a rate, need constant attention; for the soil is washed away from these steeps beneath the stone walls, and must be replaced every spring; every clod of earth is a great treasure, and they carefully collect the earth which has been thrown out of a ditch to fill up their vineyard patches. A square foot of land is reckoned to produce two bottles of wine annually. Every portion of a vine is used; the stems and leaves serving as food for the cattle; the husks, after being pressed and wedged into round moulds, then dried, are used for fuel, burning something as peat does. In many houses of this section the cellars are enormously large, with a capacity as high as a million bottles each; and they are often used as the common sitting- and reception-room.[80] Vineyards also flourish on the slopes surrounding the lakes of Neuchâtel, Biel, and Zurich; in the valleys of the larger rivers and certain plains of northern Switzerland they are found to a small extent. Still, the wine produced is not sufficient for the demand, and over 15,000,000 gallons are annually imported; in this consumption the great number of tourists who come every season must be taken into account.
Growing grass and fodder, cattle-breeding, and cheese-making are the most important branches of Swiss agriculture. For ages the forest Cantons had little tillable land reclaimed, and from difficulty of communication with the outside world the people were thrown almost entirely upon their own scanty local resources. With hardly any means of getting supplies from without, with very little land for cultivating cereals, and in the days before maize and potatoes, their chief reliance was upon their cows. It is very much so even at this day, but in those days the reliance was all but unqualified. Their cows supplied them not only with a great part of their food, but also, through the surplus cheese, with tools, and everything else they were incapable of producing themselves, from the singularly limited resources of their secluded valleys. The Switzer was then the parasite of the cow. There were no ways in which money could be made; there were no manufactures and no travellers; and so there were no inn-keepers to supply travellers, nor shop-keepers to supply the wants of operatives, manufacturers, and travellers; and there were none who had been educated up to the point that would enable them to go abroad to make money with which they might return to their old home. If the general population had not had the means of keeping cows, they would not have had the means for livelihood. The problem therefore for them to solve was,—how was every family to be enabled to keep cows? The solution was found in the Allmends,—lands held and used in common. The natural summer pastures were common, and every burgher had the right to keep as many cows upon them in the summer as he had himself kept during the previous winter with the hay he had made from his labor-created and labor-maintained patch of cultivated ground, or, as it was called, prairies; or, if as yet he had no prairies, with the dried leaves and coarse stuff he had been able to collect from the common forest. This system was both necessary and fair. It originated in the nature of the country, and its then economical condition, and in turn it created the Swiss life and character. Every one knows La Fontaine’s story of Perrette going to the market to buy eggs; the eggs are hatched into chickens, the chickens produce a pig and then a calf, and the calf becomes a cow. This dream of Perrette’s is daily realized by the Swiss peasant farmer. He picks up grass and manure along the road; he raises rabbits, and with the money they bring he buys first a goat, then a pig, next a calf, by which he gets a cow producing calves in her turn. Milk is the great thing desired by the pastoral people, and not to possess a milk-giving animal is esteemed such a misfortune that, as a little solace to the poor, cream is in certain places regularly distributed to them on the third Sunday in August. Switzerland varies, through a decennial period, from thirty to thirty-five head of horned cattle to every hundred inhabitants, yet it actually imports butter and cattle. It consumes more animal food than the contiguous countries, viz., twenty-two kilos. of meat, twelve kilos. of cheese, five of butter, and one hundred and eighty-two of milk per head per annum. To the Swiss may be applied the words of Cæsar as to the ancient Britons: “Lacte et carne vivunt.” The country is well adapted for the keeping and breeding of cattle, being favored with good grass, water, and air. Large sums are expended by the various cantonal governments upon schemes for the improvement of the breed of cattle and for the facilitation of their transport from the place of production to the market. The cattle for milking, draught, and fattening are not kept and treated separately with a single object only being kept in view; the Swiss cow is expected to unite all these qualities at one time within herself. It is believed that a cow is positively benefited by being put to the plough, especially if the work be done in the morning; and few bullocks, but many cows, are frequently seen serving various draught purposes, not with the yoke, but with harness similar to that used for the horse. A cow which, at the time of calving, fails to give eighteen litres (litre = .88 quart) of milk is not considered of any value. A fair average for the Swiss cow is ten quarts of milk per day the milking year through, and five thousand three hundred and fifteen pounds of milk per cow is an annual average yield for the milking season of nine months. In England the famous short-horned cows furnish only an average of four thousand six hundred and eighty-eight pounds, and the highest average of milk received at the best dairies of the State of New York reaches a little over four thousand pounds, making a difference in favor of Swiss cows of over thirteen hundred pounds. The federal government makes an annual appropriation for the improvement of cattle, and in the distribution of the subsidy confines itself to those Cantons where cattle-breeding receives local assistance and encouragement. All subsidies are made subject to various conditions to secure the fullest benefit therefrom. These require an annual examination of all breeding-bulls to be held at a district show; prize bulls must be used in the Canton for at least one year after the awarding of the prize; breeding-bulls must be registered, and none unregistered may be so used; prize cows must also remain a certain time in the Commune, and must not leave the Canton before calving. The Swiss have superior breeds of cattle for yield of milk, aptitude for fattening, and capability of working, as well as handsome in appearance. From reports made by United States consuls, the two best-known and highly-prized breeds of cattle appear to be the parti-colored and the brown; the difference prevailing in each being, mainly, in point of size and greater or less degree of fineness. The parti-colored breed is seen at its best in the valleys of the Simme, Saane, and Kander, in the Gruyère and Bulle districts, and generally over the western and northern parts of Switzerland. They are large, and among the heaviest cattle in Europe; their ground color is white, and it is marked with dun, reddish-yellow, or black; the milk from these cows is admirably adapted for making cheese and butter. Some of the most famous cheeses known to the market are from the milk of these “fleck” or spotted cows. They fatten kindly, and, owing to strength and size, are well suited for draught purposes. The brown race consists of a heavy Schwyz breed, the medium-size breed from Unterwalden and part of the eastern Cantons, and the smaller mountain breed. It has been called the “turf-breed,” and is considered to be more ancient than the parti-colored. It is mostly found in Schwyz, Zug, Luzern, and Zurich. The brown Schwyz is a beautifully-formed cow of mouse color, running into brown; large, straight back, usually with white streak; short, light horns, two-thirds white with tips black; nose tipped dark gray, with light borders; udder large, white, and smooth; usual weight about twelve hundred to thirteen hundred pounds, those kept in the higher Alps weigh about nine hundred pounds. There is a breed in the Valais known as the Hérens, which is considered by many to be a separate and primitive race. These animals, having short, stout bodies, are admirably suited to the steepest and most inaccessible pasturage; they are readily fattened, the quality of their meat is greatly prized by butchers, and they are renowned for their enormous powers of draught. In 1880 a great impulse was given to the careful breeding of cattle by the establishment of four herd-books. It is alleged that the great number of good cows of pure blood help to make the Swiss herd-book a failure. It began life with as many “pure bloods” as most herd-books contain after twenty years’ existence. At the international show of Paris, in 1878, every Swiss cow exhibited bore away a prize. They have competed also with exhibits from Holland, England, and Denmark, and other famous cattle and milk-producing districts of Europe. Good Swiss cows sell from 500 to 1200 francs each. These fine milk-, butter-, and cheese-producing animals are fed only on grass and hay the year through; occasionally a little dry bran may be added. From May to September the cows in the neighborhood of the mountains are herded on the upper Alps, and this rich, nutritious, short Alpine grass sustains for nearly four months multitudes of as beautiful cattle as are to be found in the world. All the mountain pasturages go by the name of Alp,[81] and comprise “voralpen,” used in the spring; “mittelalpen,” middle or intermediate pasture, remaining free of snow from the first of June to the end of September, and “hochalpen,” sometimes nine thousand feet high, for sheep and goats. Except when on these Alpine pastures, the cows have only house-feeding, and, there being no grazing-fields aside from the Alps, the cows of the plains are stall-fed through the entire year. In the summer the fresh-cut grass is fed to them. It is economy to cut the grass and carry it in as against permitting the meadows to be trampled, grass wasted, and the animals worried with flies. The cattle-stables are long, low, rectangular attachments to the barns. They are always built of stone, with walls about two feet thick. The stalls are usually ceiled over head, and often plastered throughout; the floors stone or cement, and bedded with poor hay, straw, or saw-dust, and a tight-fitting; oak door is at the end of the rectangle. These barns are very warm, but thoroughly ventilated, and the stalls are clean and nice beyond comparison. The cows are marched out to exercise, air, and water daily; they are curried and cared for the same as fine horses; their coats are brushed until they shine, and the animals are evidently vain of their beauty. In this, as in other cases, man’s regard for the lower animals appears to be rewarded by an increase in their intelligence. The universal reasons given for thus penning up these cows are: “It saves feed,” “the cows give more milk for the warmth,” “there are no flies to worry them,” and “more manure is obtained.” The peasant, pointing to the manure heap, will say, “Out there is where the per cents. are made.” As grass and hay are almost exclusively fed, it is requisite that these be of the best quality and of sufficient quantity. There is a great variety and succession of green crops for feeding in the house, almost the year round, carefully cultivated. A moist climate, frequent appliance of liquid manure,[82] and the practice of growing fruit-trees in the meadows prevent drought in Switzerland. Then much moisture comes from the incessant filtration of the melting glaciers which are constantly dissolving under the heat of the sun. The conditions of moisture and sunshine give to the country its abundance of grass, causing it to grow anywhere. You see it rapidly establishing itself on the tops of roadside walls. On a heap of stones lichens and moss soon appear, and, by their decay, in time fill the interstices, then a mantle of turf creeps over it. In excavations on hill-sides, where the mountain torrent brings down successive avalanches of rocky detritus, each successive layer in turn and in time becomes consolidated with mould and then covered with turf. Indeed, a greater part of the valleys consists of nothing but a film of soil superimposed on fragments of rock. There are two or three grass crops in Switzerland yearly,—the first in the beginning of May, the second at the end of July, and often another early in October. The mountains intercept winds and clouds, making the amount of precipitation large. The clouds are generally intercepted by the mountains at an elevation of five thousand feet, and then descend in rain; higher up the precipitation is in the form of snow. There is great difference in annual waterfalls, the greatest being as we approach the Alps, whether from the north or south. The annual rainfall is thirty-five inches at Basel, sixty-four and a half inches at Interlaken, sixty-nine at Schwyz, rising to eighty-eight on the Grimsel and one hundred and two on the St. Bernard, and falling at Lugano to sixty-three. The percentage of snow in the total annual rainfall varies from sixty-three on the St. Bernard to six at Geneva. The importance of this precipitation may be understood when it is recalled that a precipitation of twenty-eight inches is considered essential to agricultural security. The meadows are aided in no less degree than the climate by constant fertilizing and extraordinary care in the way of watering, draining, etc. A Swiss acre of good grass-land is worth, in the richer and more populous Cantons, from 1500 to 2000 francs. Milk, and what is made from it, constitute the most important resource of the peasant’s income. The manufacture of cheese is one of the most ancient industries of the country, instruments for this purpose having been found in different parts among the ruins of the “Lake-dwellers,” whose date is anterior to all historical records. On wedding occasions it was formerly the custom to present the bride and bridegroom with a large cheese, the joint contribution of their relatives; and this cheese was handed down, generation after generation, as a family register, on which were inscribed births, deaths, and marriages. Cheeses bearing date of 1660 are still to be seen. In some parts of the country cheese forms the staple food of the people, and the laborers are often paid with it. There are no fewer than five thousand five hundred cheese-making factories, and nearly 13,000 tons are exported annually, the value of which is over $7,000,000.