In the first place there are some German systems of husbandry which may well be weeded out at once from the rest as not analogous to the Anglo-Saxon three-field system in England.
The Feldgraswirthschaft.
There is the old 'Feldgraswirthschaft,' analogous perhaps to the Welsh co-ploughing of the waste and the shifting 'Arva' of the Germans of Tacitus, which still lingers in the mountain districts of Germany and Switzerland, where corn is a secondary crop to grass.[558]
The Einzelhöfe.
There are the 'Einzelhöfe' of Westphalia and other districts, i.e. single farms, each consisting mainly of land all in one block, like a modern English farm, but as different as possible from the old English open-field system, with its yard-lands and scattered strips.[559]
Forest and marsh system.
Further, there is a peculiar form of the open-field system, chiefly found in forest and marsh districts, in which each holding consists generally of one single [p372] long strip of land, reaching from the homestead right across the village territory to its boundary.[560] This system, so different from the prevalent Anglo-Saxon system, is supposed to represent comparatively modern colonisation and reclamation of forest and marsh land; and though possibly bearing some analogy to the English fen system, is not that for which we are seeking.
Passing all these by, we come to a peculiar method of husbandry which covers a large tract of country, and which is adopted under both the single farm system and also the open-field system with scattered ownership, but which nevertheless is opposed to the three-field system. It is especially important for our purpose because of its geographical position.
The one-field system
All over the sand and bog district of the north of Germany, crops, mostly of rye and buckwheat, have for centuries been grown year after year on the same land, kept productive by marling and peat manure, on what Hanssen describes as the 'one-field system.' [561] This system is found in Westphalia, East Friesland, Oldenburg, North Hanover, Holland, Belgium. Denmark, Brunswick, Saxony, and East Prussia. Over parts of the district under this one-field system the single-farm system prevails, in others the fields are divided into 'Gewanne' and strips, and there is scattered ownership.