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TOL RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.
if the cultivation was what it is in the greateft part of Suabia. As things now are, not
only a great part of this fruitful land is uncultivated, but even that which is cultivated is
not turned to near the advantage it might. In this country they know nothing of arti-
ficial cultivation, fuch as dunging in a cheap way, the mixture of different earths, and
the ufe of chalky clay to manure, though parts of the country produce this laft commo-
dity in great abundance. They fuffer, at leaft more than half the ground there is need
for, to lay fallow. Their common way of threfhing, is by driving oxen over the corn,
by which half of it is left for ftraw. When you are travelling through this country,
you think yourfelf going over a wild, though you are in fact upon a bottom, which with
very little trouble would produce fifty, fixty, or even one hundred fold. ‘The roads
are of an immentfe breadth, and the fields adjoining them of fo little value, that the
pottillions drive through them, without the leaft ceremony, whenever a little mud or
rain in the highway reminds them of its being more convenient.
The inhabitants excufe their bad farming by the little value which grain bears, and
fay, that if their harvefts were ten times greater, they fhould gain nothing by them.
There may be fome truth in this, but the fault is certainly owing originally to a bad
government. ‘The value of grain would undoubtedly increafe with an increafed popu-
lation; and if the farmer had fufficient encouragement, the land might be put to other
ufes befides the growing of grain. They already grow a great deal of tobacco, faffron,
and other valuable articles; but there are numberlefs others which might be produced,
if, what you will fcarce believe, government did not rather feek to difcourage, than pros
mote agriculture.
The exportation of the Hungarian wines, one of the richeft produdts of the country,
and which, if it were free, would foon ruin the fale of the French wines in the North,
is clogged with immumerable obftructions. Thefe the legiflature impofes under the
idea, that if once they did not exift, the trade of the Auftrian wines would be ruined.
The difcouragement in confequence has been carried to fuch a height, that not long
fince.there exifted a law, that no quantity of Hungarian wine fhould be exported with-
out exporting fo much Auftrian wine with it. This, no doubt, fuits the Auftrian no-
bility who ‘have eftates with vines upon them; but it is feeding the little finger at the
expence of the whole body; for, as none but thofe who can afford to pay exorbitantly
for their drink will buy the Auftrian wines, the confequence is, that, except a few of
the rich nobility, France fupplies all the North, which otherwife would take its wine
from Hungary. Nor does the evil end here; the Hungarian peafant, who is opprefied
by his lord, feeks to drown his forrow in the cup, which he either makes himfelf, or
can buy in moft places for two, three, or four creutzer the bottle. ‘The confequence
of this is, that men who in their youth are plump, ruddy, and feemingly built for ever,
grow pale, emaciated, and dwarfifh, and begin to droop after thirty, fo that the popu
lation is already much diminifhed, and would grow lefs and lefs, if it were not for the
acceflion of foreigners. It is partly owing to this, and partly to the want of education,
that many traéts of the country have the exact appearance of American lands, and,
were it not that you fee no fcalps or enemies fkulls to drink out of, you would often -
think yourfelf in company with fo many Cherokees. The tax on Hungarian tobacco,
when exported, is no lefs hurtful to the agriculture of this country. Certainly the
farmers of this part of the revenue in the Auftrian dominions ought to have it in come»
mand to import fuch a proportion of Hungarian tobacco, with all they import from other
places.
There is no country in the world which has a greater variety of inhabitants than Hun -
gary. The ancient pofleflors of the country were partly Tartars and partly Sclavonians.
9 Amongft
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