Domestic commerce has been further facilitated by an elaborate network of canals. By far the most important of these is the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal (sixty-one miles long), which unites the North Sea and the Baltic. The Dortmund-Ems (one hundred and fifty miles long) and the Elbe-Trave (forty-three miles long) have only recently been completed. Since the building of the Rhine and Rhone canal through Mulhaüsen, it has been possible for a barge to pass from Rotterdam to Marseilles without unloading.
The union of the Danube and Rhine is effected by the Ludwigs canal, and that of the Seine and Rhine by the Rhine and Marne Canal. A number of canals, including the Teltow (opened in 1906), serve to connect the Spree, and therefore Berlin, with the Oder and the Elbe, the Oder and Vistula being joined by what is known as the Bromberger Canal.
Productions and Industries.—Following this distribution of climate, the forests which still cover a great part of Germany, and form a feature of its landscapes, are chiefly of the hardier pines in the north and east, and of deciduous trees in the south and west. About sixty-one per cent of the surface of the empire is suitable for cultivation, the forests occupy twenty-five per cent, and the uncultivable moors and mountain tracts only eight per cent.
Agriculture.—There are sixty-five million acres of cultivated soil, and over twenty-one million acres of grass and pasture lands. Rye and oats are the chief grains, the former flourishing in the north despite the drawbacks of poor climate and soil. Almost as much land is devoted to potatoes as to rye; for the sandy plains of western Prussia and Pomerania seem to suit this crop equally well. Flax, hemp, and the beet—the last for the sugar industry—are grown in Saxony and in the Baltic provinces, especially in Hanover. The vine covers the dry, sunny slopes of the Vosges, and is also extensively grown along the Rhine. The rich alluvial soils of the sheltered valleys in the southwest are also favorable to the production of tobacco and hops, which are accordingly cultivated with success in Baden, Hesse, and Bavaria.
Minerals.—Germany is rich in minerals, especially in coal and iron. The great industrial activity of the country very largely depends on the fact that these two minerals are found together, and moreover in proximity to navigable water-courses. In the Rhine basin the coal beds follow the courses of the Ruhr, Saar, and Ill, and excellent iron ore is found in both the Ruhr and Saar coal fields. Coal is also found in Silesia, while the Saxon mines in the Elbe basin yield chiefly the lignite variety.
Almost one half of the zinc produced in the world is mined in Germany, the chief centers being at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), in Rhenish Prussia, and Königshütte, on the Oder coal fields, while nearly half the silver of Europe is produced from the silver, lead, and copper ores found in the Harz Mountains, Silesia, and the mines of Freiberg (Saxony). Most of the German copper comes from the Harz and Erzgebirge Mountains. Large quantities of rock and potassium salts are produced in Hanover, Saxony, Thuringia, and Anhalt. The mineral springs of Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Ems, etc., are world famous.
Manufactures.—The industrial development of the empire proceeded at an almost unprecedented rate throughout the last century. The following catalogue will give some idea of the local distribution of the various industries: Iron goods and machinery are manufactured in Prussia, Saxony, Alsace-Lorraine, and Bavaria; steel goods in Rhenish Prussia. Woolens and worsteds are produced in Saxony and the Rhine province; cotton [497] goods in Prussia, Saxony, Baden, Bavaria and Alsace-Lorraine; silk at Elberfeld (Rhenish Prussia) and in Baden; and linen goods in Westphalia, Silesia, and Saxony. The Rhine and Moselle districts are important centers for light wines; Bavaria is famous for its toys, like Nuremberg for its watches and pencils, and Meissen, Dresden, and Berlin, etc., for their porcelain. Finally there are manufactories up and down the country of chemicals, beer, sugar, tobacco, leather (in Hesse-Darmstadt), and paper.
People and Language.—The German-speaking inhabitants of the empire are about ninety-three per cent of the total population; but a considerable proportion of these are not of the Germanic stock. Among the peoples retaining their own language (about four and one-fourth millions) are Poles (exclusively in eastern and northeastern Prussia), Wends (in Silesia, Brandenburg, and Saxony), Czechs (in Silesia), Lithuanians (in eastern Prussia), Danes (in Sleswick), French (in Rhenish Prussia, Alsace and Lorraine) and Walloons (about Aix-la-Chapelle in Rhenish Prussia). The Germans are divided into High and Low Germans; the language of the former is the cultivated language of all the German states; that of the latter, known as Platt-Deutsch, is spoken in the north and northwest. (See further, [Teutonic peoples], in [Book of Races].)
Education and General Culture.—Germany stands conspicuously foremost in the field of state education, and so far is without rival for the admirable systemization and for the variety and thoroughness of the technical trainings provided. It is established by law that every child from the age of six to fourteen must attend one of the elementary schools (“Volkschulen”), or some other recognized scholastic institution.
There are also a number of fully-equipped Technical High Schools, with the power of granting degrees, and some one thousand four hundred secondary schools (gymnasia, realschulen, oberrealschulen, etc.); numerous special schools of technology, agriculture, forestry, mining, commerce, military science, etc. There are twenty-one universities in the empire: at Königsberg, Berlin, Breslau, Greifswald (in Pomerania, southeast of Stralsund), Kiel, Halle, Göttingen, Münster, Bonn, Marburg, Rostock, Giessen, Jena, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Freiburg, Strassburg, Tübingen, Munich, Erlangen, and Würzburg. All of these have the four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, and many are some of the oldest foundations of their kind in Europe.