HANOVER.
busses, which are employed in the herring-fishery, and usually take and .cure from 12,000 to 14,000 tons of that fish annually. Fourth, the Vecht, a river of short course, rising in the Prussian province of Westphalia, and terminating in the Zuyder Sea. Its principal importance is derived from a navigable canal, which commences at the city of Miinster, and is the channel of some trade through the Vecht to Amsterdam.
Though Hanover is generally a sandy soil, it has some small fresh water lakes. The Dummersee, in Diepholta, is about twelve miles in circuit. The Steinhudermeer, in the province of Kalenburg, is about four miles long and two broad ; and the Dol lart, at the mouth of the Ems, which is rather an estuary than a lake, is twelve miles across. The canals are all of short course. The Bremen canal, designed to unite the Hamme, the Oste, and the Schwinge, is not completed ; nor is the Treckschuit canal, intended to connect Witmund with Anrich. The Pappenburg canal is only navigable from the Ems to that city.
Though considerable variations, in conformity to the different natures of the soils. occur in the hus bandry of Hanover, yet it may be generally describ ed as at a very low standard. The land mostly be longs either to the king or to the nobles, as lords of the soil, who have under them a species of tenants called bauers, having the use of small portions of land, under many and various feudal conditions. These bauers pay little or no rent in money, but render the lord a stipulated number of days' work in seed time and harvest on his demesne lands, or give him a certain proportion of the proceeds of their crops. In most instances the lords have the right of pasture for their cattle over the whole land, and are the proprietors of most of the sheep and cows. There is an exception to this mode of holding, called the meyer law, but it extends over so small a portion of the kingdom, as not to merit a detailed notice of it. The rotation of crops usually followed in Hanover is first a fallow, on which the land is cultivated to potatoes, peas, or flax ; then follows winter corn, either rye or wheat, but chiefly the former, and to them succeeds, summer corn, either barley or oats. As the fields are usually di
vided into small portions, like many of our common fields in England, and the larger divisions must all be cultivated alike, though belonging to different occupiers; and as the course that has prevailed from time immemorial must be continued, there is little or no room for improvement, and little encourage ment for superior knowledge or greater activity. Such is the bad state of cultivation, that the increase of grain is not estimated to exceed four for one of the quantity sown through the whole kingdom. The breeding and fattening of cattle is a branch of rural economy, confined to particular portions adapt ed to that purpose, and is in the same backward state as the agriculture. By the latest enumeration of the live stock, which was previous to some pro vinces of 600,000 acres in extent being added to it, there were 224,500 horses; 675,926 head of horned cattle ; 1,540,794 sheep and lambs ; 15,728 goats and kids ; 176,974 swine ; and 1498 asses and mules. Much of the heath land, especially in the province of Luneburg, is used for no other purpose but that of rearing bees for the sake of their honey and wax. The hives are transported in waggons, at the com mencement of the spring, to those more southern countries, where the flowers bloom early, and are afterwards brought back when the heath flowers are fit for them, and remain till the proper time for tak ing the contents of the hives. Large numbers of geese are also kept by the bauers on the moist situa tions; their flesh is salted for winter domestic con sumption, and their feathers are preserved for sale. These two sources, affording wax, honey, and fea thers, yield the principal disposable produce of some of the provinces.