Bernadotte-much attention has been paid to agriculture. The improvement and increase of the flocks of sheep for the growth of wool, the introduction of better breeds of stock, of newer implements, and of an improved rotation of crops-have successively received much attention; but of late years the great force of the people has been expended on the drainage of the lakes and marshes with which the country is so plentifully studded over. The agricultural societies of the provinces, in conjunction with the Academy of Agriculture in Stockholm, have devoted much pains to what may be called the arterial drainage of their several districts; and though the more refined method of improvement, known in Great Britain by the name of thorough drainage, has not as yet been any where introduced, it is only just to to the energy of Sweden to say that no European people, in proportion to its natural resources, has done more during the last twenty years in the reclamation of improvable land from the dominion of overflowing

water.

Further advances also are secured by the translation, especially from the English, of the best works on scientific agriculture, under the auspices of the Academy of Agriculture, and by the establishment of agricultural schools and model farms, one of which each province is expected in a few years to possess. Thus in Sweden, as in all other countries, the period of improvement by mechanical means will be succeeded by one of improvement by chemical means-the nature and economical application of which latter means, books and schools will have taught, when the time for more generally applying them shall have

come.

RUSSIA. In Russia, agriculture as a whole is in a very imperfect condition. Here and there, especially in the neighborhood of large towns, like Moscow and St. Petersburg, laboriously and skilfully cultivated fields may be seen, while herds of improved Swiss and shorthorned cattle are carefully reared on the domains of the rich nobility. The Emperor also, who knows well the importance of this art to the strength and prosperity of his dominions, sets an example to his subjects by the efforts he makes to introduce a better system of culture among the serfs on the imperial estates, by the establishment of schools for the instruction of farmers in art and experimental science, and by the maintenance of model farms upon the appanages of the crown. But Russia, nevertheless, is half a wilderness. Millions of acres of perpetual forests cover rich soils which there are no hands to till. The value of an estate is measured not by the number of acres it contains, but by the number of souls which live upon, cultivate, and are sold along with

it. As in the first clearings of a North-American wilderness, where land is comparatively worthless, the soil is cropped till it is exhausted, and then the new land is subjected to the plough and exhausted in its turn. In no country of the world, with the exception of Northern America, is there so vast a field for the useful emigration of agricultural settlers, as in the mighty empire of Russia. But language, and religion, and political institutions, oppose barriers which the Saxon, and I may say the Teutonic races generally, feel themselves unable to overcome.*

GERMANY, In order to obtain a correct opinion of the agriculture of a country, a man must not only view the country with his own eyes, but his eyes must be taught both what to look for and how to look for it. The reports of travellers who are unskilled in rural matters-the educational institutions of the country itself-and even its agricultural statistics, are all unsafe guides where a really correct appreciation is desired of its true position in reference to this important branch of social economy. This observation is illustrated by the actual condition of the several branches of rural economy when compared with the state of agricultural instruction, and with the attention which has been paid to statistics in the different kingdoms of Germany, and in France.

SAXONY.-In Saxony, a country greatly favored by nature in the character of its soils, the chief attention of the great landholders and of the government, has been long directed to the improvement of the breed of sheep, from which the celebrated Saxon wool is obtained. This kingdom exhibits generally a very different appearance from the neighboring country of Bavaria. In passing from the latter kingdom to the former, "you seem to pass," says Mr. Royer, "from the desert into the land of promise." "Two-thirds of the rich proprietors in Saxony," he observes, "cultivate their own properties, and have established an order, neatness, and method, which, though far from agricultural perfection, you seek for in vain in France."

WURTEMBURG.—In the kingdom of Wurtemburg, where the instruction at the agricultural school of Hohenheim and elsewhere, is better organized, and at this moment more famed, than in any other part of Germany and where, in fact, the art of culture as a whole is the farthest advanced, the general cultivation is described by Mr. Royer as being melancholy, and, at a distance from the capital, very different from what the eulogies of authors had led him to suppose.

BAVARIA.-In Bavaria we find an imposing array of institutions and

• For information on the state of agriculture in Russia, see also a paper by the Hon, Mr. Slocum, in the transactions of the N. Y. State Agricultural Society, for 1848, p. 638.

means of instruction, specially provided for the rural community, which are fitted to impress the superficial observer with a high idea of its agricultural condition. As in Wurtemburg, there is a central school of agriculture. There are also chairs of rural economy in the universities, and more than twenty chairs of agriculture in the seminaries and polytechnic schools of the provinces, besides a general agricultural society, counting more than 8,000 members. These facts convey the impression of much zeal on the part of the government; much interest in agriculture on the part of the people; and an advanced state of the art of culture in the kingdom generally. But "the miserable aspect of Bavarian agriculture would lead one to suppose that all these means of encouragement are very inefficacious." (Royer.)

The schools are badly organized or conducted. The great landowners are indifferent on the subject of agricultural improvement, while the miserably defective condition of the roads and other means of internal communication indicate, that even the government which has organized all the formal apparatus we have mentioned, is not itself alive to the most fundamental element of agricultural progress.

PRUSSIA cannot boast either of its practical agriculture, or of its system of agricultural instruction. It is a proof of how very little has in past ages been done in the way of teaching the rural population in the principles of the art of culture, that Prussia should so long have derived an undeserved celebrity from the existence of a private agricultural school at Mögelin, established in 1806, and conducted till his death in 1819, by the distinguished Von Thaer. After his death the school he had founded was made a royal academy, and is still in existence. It contains at present only twenty pupils; and even in Von Thaer's time it never contained more than thirty-four. In the much praised primary schools of Prussia, a little instruction in gardening is the only teaching which bears an immediate relation to the future occupations of the rural population.

In the nature of its soils, indeed, which are sandy, light enough to be blown by the winds, and apparently almost sterile, Prussia has much to contend with. This is especially the case in its more ancient and central dutchies. Westphalia and the Rhenish provinces are naturally richer, and are also more advanced and better cultivated.

Besides, until the revolution of the past year, the burdens or servitudes upon land, of a feudal kind—and of which in the New World you have no examples, except a few of a milder form in the seignories of Lower Canada-were so onerous and so unequally distributed, as greatly to retard the development of its agricultural capabilities. The

state of the roads and other means of communication also, as in Bavaria, and the scarcity of large towns, have concurred with other causes, in retaining the agriculture of Prussia in a very backward condition.

HOLLAND. If from the uplands of Germany we descend to the lowlands, and especially to that country which includes the islands at the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt, and the low country stretching northward to the Zuyder Zee and the Dollart, we shall find reason to stay our steps and to consider calmly the cause, and purpose, and extent of the wonderful system of canals and embankments which the kingdom of Holland presents.

In a sketch of European agriculture, indeed, Holland is deserving of distinguished mention. Above all other European people, the Dutch, though slow, have been patient and persevering in their agricultural labors. Occupying a few more elevated and fertile alluvial spots, in the midst of downs and bogs, and marshes and lakes, and the endless ramifications of many rivers, they have century after century struggled against nature. Draining marshes, pumping out lakes, damming back seas and rivers, reclaiming bogs, fixing by art the wandering downs, interlacing their country with an interminable net-work of gigantic canals;-by such labors as these, they have extended the productive surface of their country, secured its possession, and made its natural riches available. And what makes their praise the greater and more deserved, is the constant watchfulness and care which the retention of their country demands. Exposed on the average of the last thirteen centuries to one great sea or river flood, every seven years, the possession of the land they have gained is never secure. Lying below the actual level of the sea, large tracts of it are only preserved by the huge dykes that surround them, and to maintain these dykes requires unceasing vigilance, and a large yearly expenditure of money.

And though in times past the Hollanders have done great engineering works, yet the spirit of the sires has not degenerated in their living sons. The draining of the Haarlem lake, now in progress, is the boldest mechanical effort ever yet made in the cause of agriculture in any country, and promises to add no less to the material wealth, than to the engineering and constructive fame of the United Provinces.

I feel a pleasure in thus adverting to the impression made upon my own mind, during my various tours in Holland, in the presence of a meeting of agriculturists, many of whom may inherit from the early settlers of New-York, a portion of that industrious and patient blood, which makes every end sure to the determined and persevering man.*

⚫ For a fuller account of the Rural Industry and Drainage of Holland which I wrote for the Edinburgh Review, see vol. 86, p. 419, of that work.

I may mention as an indication of the early desire of the Dutch authorities to promote the diffusion of agricultural knowledge, that a very old regulation prescribes attendance on agricultural lectures as a necessary branch of study to the established clergy of Holland.* And though in that, as in many other countries, men of the old school at present act as a drag on the progress of scientific agriculture, yet enlightened and zealous minds are at work in various parts of the Netherlands, and advance is gradually being made. The name of MULder ought especially to be mentioned as most eminent among the scientific men of Holland, not only in advancing pure science, but in advocating and promoting its general applications to the agriculture of his native country.

ITALY.-From Holland turn for a moment to Italy, in which country drainage works somewhat akin to those of the Dutch, form the proudest monuments of which even that famed land can boast, of the victory which persevering intelligence can achieve over the difficulties and seeming hostility of nature.

Did time permit, I might present to you a most interesting historical sketch of the changes in agricultural condition and capability which that country has undergone from the period of the ancient Etrurians to the present day. And to the man of science, such a sketch would be the more interesting, from the circumstance that in all the changes which have taken place, the physical and geological structure of the country, has exercised a far more prominent and permanent influence than either the remarkable industry and constructive skill of the Etruscan inhabitants or the hostile incursions of its foreign invaders.

To the rich alluvial plains of Lombardy, of which rice and Indian corn, and wheat and abundant milk, are the natural productions; and to Tuscany, in which something of the ancient industry and persevering practical skill of the old Etrurianst still survives, the agricultural enquirer must proceed to see the bright side of Italian cultivation.

But it is in Tuscany chiefly that he will find the most interesting evidence of the conquering power of the living mind over the obstacles of physical nature. The Marremme of Tuscany and the marshes of the Val di Chiana, like the Campagna and the Pontine marshes of the Roman dominions, have long breathed forth that pestilential malaria, which

This must be considered an admirable provision, enabling the pastor to advise in regard to the temporal pursuits, no less than the spiritual affairs of his flock.

To those who are desirous of obtaining the means of forming clear notions of the physical structure of Italy, of its climatic conditions in the times of the ancient Etrurians, and of the industrial skill as well as the social relations of this people, I venture to recommend a perusal of Denis's Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria.