2d. The want of convenient commercial outlets for the produce of the soil.
We shall find in Hungary a striking illustration of the correctness of this opinion. "The Populus Hungaricus," is divided into four estates, the magnates, the nobles, and the clergy, who possess all the lands, and the "misera contribuens plebs," who (besides tithes, rents and corvees) pay all the taxes. This wretched populace is composed of the burghers and the peasantry, of which there are three kinds—slaves for life, temporary slaves, and a third sort called liberæ emigrationis, who, as their name indicates, have loco motive powers and rights. Of the condition of this people, since the year 1764, (and before that period it was much worse) we may form an idea from the edict of Maria Theresa, called the urbarium, or law of contracts between landlord and tenant, by which it is declared, that corporal punishment (inflicted by the master for insolent words or conduct) shall not exceed twenty-four strokes with a cane for a man, and the same number with a switch for a woman. Nor is the commercial condition of this people better than the civil; they are not only obliged to take from Austria many things which they could have had in other places of a better quality and at a lower price, but they are also compelled to carry to Vienna the products of their own soil and labour, where their sale is embarrassed and their value lessened by heavy and oppressive taxes. The same remark applies to Galitia, whose natural outlet is the Vistula, or the Nieper; but of these she is not permitted to avail herself, and, like her sister kingdoms, is compelled to seek the markets furnished by the Danube and Trieste. "The consequences are obvious—the tenant works only to satisfy hunger, and the landlord is satisfied with little more than 'victum et vestitum.'"[5]
[5] Geog. Math. vol. 4. art. Hungary.
The amount of lands annually cultivated in Bavaria, is one million one hundred and sixty-five thousand acres, which produce about six millions of bushels of grain, of which two millions are surplus. The Palatinate, (one of the dependencies of Bavaria) is also very productive. The route between Heidelberg and D'Armstadt, called the Bergstrass, traverses one of the finest districts of Germany, and perhaps of Europe; where are seen extensive vineyards, vast meadows and fertile fields, producing wheat, barley, tobacco, madder, rhubarb, turnips, &c. &c. In the year 1799, all the electorial possessions within the circle of Bavaria, contained 199,000 horses, 160,000 oxen, 465,000 cows, 961,000 sheep, 320,000 hogs, and 378,000 goats. Yet are the Bavarians, compared with the inhabitants of the north of Germany, half a century in the rear. The people are, extremely ignorant and fantastical: like the people of Rome and Lisbon, they sacrifice much time to processions and fetes, and like them also are slaves of the vilest appetites. Debauchery is no where more flagrant than in Munich.[6]
[6] Geog. Math. &c. art. Bavaria. Compare the productiveness of Bavaria with England—the comparison is in favour of the former.
Wurtemburg is ranked among the most fertile and well cultivated countries of Germany. The mountainous parts produce potatoes, oats, hemp and flax; the less hilly abound in wheat, spelts, rye, buck-wheat, Indian corn and barley; and in the vallies we find tobacco, madder and vineyards, in which the grapes of France, Cyprus, and Persia succeed perfectly. Apples, pears, &c. are of common product and excellent quality.[7]
[7] Idem.
11. It has been justly remarked, that to know the state of husbandry in any country, you have but to examine the instruments employed, the succession of crops, and the condition of labourers.—Tried by these tests, the agriculture of Russia will be found to be in a state of great degradation.—The plough (called soka) which is commonly used, is very light, of simple construction, and but calculated to enter the ground one inch and a half; the harrow consists of one or more young pine trees (whose branches are cut off about eight inches from the stem) steeped in water to add to their weight, and tied together. With such miserable instruments, each drawn by a single horse, the farmer scratches the ground, and without always covering the seed, which is no doubt the reason that in dry seasons their harvests are very bad.[8] In the best soil their succession of crops is of eight years—two in barley, two in oats, two in winter rye, and two in spring rye. Lands of less fertility are sown two years out of three, and mountainous tracts one year in three, when they are abandoned to weeds, until rest shall have reinstated them. "To manure them would, in the opinion of a Russian peasant, make them poorer;[9] and therefore he suffers his dunghill to accumulate into a nuisance, while he goes on to clear and exhaust new fields." "The grains raised are rye, spelts, barley, millet and oats, which, from want of sufficient roads and markets, are often low priced; as are horned cattle and horses: an ox selling for a ruble and a half, a cow for one ruble, and a horse for three rubles."[10] To this wretchedness we must add, (what perhaps occasions much of it) that throughout the civilized part of Russia, the labours of agriculture are performed by slaves confounded with the soil, and bought and sold with it. In a great portion of the northern section of this vast empire, agriculture is unknown; and the chase, the fisheries, cattle and rein-deer, furnish the only means of subsistence.
[8] Pallas, pages 3 and 4. vol. 1.
[9] Pallas, vol. 5. page 60.