GERMANY.
IN THE BLACK FOREST.
Triberg, Germany, July 17, 1905.
This is a small town in the middle of the Black Forest. I had read a good deal of the Black Forest, but really had no idea what it was. The name sounded as if it might be a part of Arkansas or Louisiana, and I think I was looking for swamps and waste land covered with underbrush and impenetrable to travelers except on made roads. But as a matter of fact it is as delightful and beautiful a country as I have seen since I left Kansas. The land is mountainous, but it is fertile and the valleys and hillsides are dotted with thrifty-looking little farms. The name applies, all right, for the mountains are covered with dense forests of spruce trees with a dark-green foliage which looks really black. The farming land has evidently been cleared in the centuries that have passed since the roving Germans settled into peaceful peasants and quit their occupation of making Rome howl by raiding and pillaging the towns of the declining empire. The Black Forest covers a great part of southwest Germany, mostly in the state or grand duchy of Baden. Up to a short time ago it had a number of practically independent little kingdoms about the size of your hat, which were in a perpetual struggle for existence and recognition. Anthony Hope used the Black Forest as the scene for his Zenda stories, and to-day we came through the principality of Fürstenberg, one of his favorite places, in which the prince of Fürstenberg still holds an honorary position but under the actual government of Emperor William. I also noticed that the prince was proprietor of a big brewery.
It is harvest-time in the Black Forest, and men and women are gathering the crops, small grain and hay, using the hand-sickle and the hand-rake but doing their work in a thorough manner. When they get through the raking I don’t suppose there is a waste straw left lying on the ground or a kernel of grain which is not carefully picked up. The farmer in Europe would get rich on what an American farmer drops on the way from the field to the barn. They have fine horses and cattle in the Black Forest, and look prosperous. When one horse is used in a wagon he is harnessed alongside the pole and not between shafts. I was told the reason was that it was to make it easy to add another horse if desired without changing the pole. That was nearly as strange as the one horse alongside the pole.
The time is past when the sight of ladies working in the field excites any interest, although I still have a little feeling when the woman is sixty or seventy years old. It is not so bad in Germany, and especially in the Black Forest, where the air is light and exhilarating; and then the men work too. In Italy the hauling was done by animals as follows: Horses, oxen, cows, dogs, women. Sometimes a woman and a dog were hitched together to small wagons, especially milk carts. In Switzerland the dogs were still in harness, but the women were out of it. And in the Black Forest I believe the dogs are freed, as all the vehicles I have seen have been drawn by horses or oxen. Perhaps it will be different later. I write now only of the Black Forest. We drove for twelve miles down one of the valleys and through the little villages. A number of the old peasant costumes were worn by women and girls, although most of them were dressed in the same styles as in Paris or Hutchinson. A very striking head-dress for the feminine is one of the Black Forest styles, a bonnet with two large wings extending upward at an angle of about 40 degrees from the head, and with flowing bands several feet long down the back. Girls and unmarried women have bright-colored wings and bands, married women must wear black. By the way, the women of continental Europe wherever we have been have worn earrings,—France, Italy, and Switzerland. As American women generally discarded these disfiguring ornaments several years ago, the sight has been a strange one. Especially in Italy are the earrings large and imposing, rich and poor vieing with each other in size of the pendants and rings.
Aside from agriculture the main industry of the Black Forest is wood-carving and clock-making. There are some small factories, but as a rule the work is done at home; and it is very good. We visited one of these home shops, and the whole family showed us their handiwork. A beautifully carved wooden hall clock with a cuckoo and a music-box which played every half-hour was only $4 American money. It must have taken the man a week to make it, and in our country the price would have been several times as large. There is a big tariff on this ware going into America, and it is all right. If it were not so, our American wood-workers would have to learn another trade or work for $4 or $5 a week. And if they got only $4 or $5 a week they would not eat much meat, buy much clothing, or pay for many newspapers. See?