GERMAN AGRICULTURE. In the middle of the 19th century Germany was still predominantly an agricultural country. At that time 65 per cent of her total population were engaged in occupations relating to the soil. By 1882 only 42 per cent were so employed, and in 1907 (the last official census that dealt with vocation) this figure had further decreased to 31 per cent. Germany was no longer able to feed her people on products of her own soil; she had become an importer of foodstuffs on a To what degree the organization of German public economy has been perfected during the past 25 years, to what degree it has increased the productive capacity of German economic labor and contributed toward enhancing the wealth of the public, is strikingly illustrated by the statistics of German exports and imports.
In the year 1912 foreign trade reached a total of $4,900,000,000 of which $2,675,000,000 was imports and $2,245,000,000 was exports. Of the imports, $2,275,000,000 was in food prod ucts, animals, industrial raw materials and semi-manufactured products, and only $400,000, 000 in finished goods. On the other hand, not less than $1,450,000,000 of the total value of $2,245,000,000 of exports was in finished goods.
Germany accordingly exchanges to a very great extent the products of its industrial labor for the primary products of field, forest and mines, which owing to the disproportion of its population to its area and the climatic re strictions upon its agricultural producing ca pacity, it can produce in only insufficient quan tities or not at all.
large scale, and fully one-third of her total population was forced to depend upon these imports in order to live. The main sources whence Germany had to draw for victuals from abroad were Russia, the United States, Hun gary, Rumania and Argentina, and the chief staples obtained from these countries were rye, wheat, barley, oats, meats of every kind, lard, bacon, cattle feed, etc., besides which fish, potatoes, condensed milk, butter, cheese, etc., were also bought from Switzerland, Holland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden in huge quan tities. However, the Great War wrought con siderable changes in all this. By obtaining their nitrogen in unlimited quantities from the air, by chemical processes, instead of relying on the guano of Chile to manure their fields with ; by cultivating even portions of the barren regions formerly used as mere wild pasture lands, such as the vast Liinebiirg heath and the moor lands of East Frisia, the hitherto sterile tracts of the basaltic Eifel region, the meagre soils of East Prussia, the rocky slopes of the Black Forest, of °Saxon Switzerland)) and the lower ranges of the Erzgebirge and Fichtelgebirge between Saxony and Bavaria, and by draining and utilizing some of the bogs of the North Sea coasts and clearing some forest lands, the total yield of the empire has been somewhat increased since 1914, despite scarcity of labor and the otherwise unfavorable conditions pre vailing in war times. But, of course, these achievements are purely experimental, and eco nomically were only made possible by the enormous advance in food values due to the blockade. They will disappear with peace re stored. Up to 1914 of the total area of 208,830 square miles, some 78 per cent, or about 105, 000,000 acres, in Germany was farmland, and some 60 per cent of this was under cultivation, the remainder being meadows, some pastures, orchards and vegetable gardens. About 25 per cent of the total area of Germany is in forest and but 7 per cent wasteland, city buildings, etc. The best farming lands are in the warm, well-sheltered Rhine Valley, with its rich alluvial soil, where vegetation is usually a fort night ahead of the rest of Germany and where the vine flourishes in special excellence. Many of the hill slopes throughout the highland of Germany are terraced and cultivated, but the mountains are forest-clad, and cultivation is chiefly confined to the plains and valleys. Soils differ greatly, of course; but generally speak ing, that in the western portion of Germany is preferable in fertility to that of the low plains of the north and east, the latter being more sandy. Even before the war the available land was tilled with great care and intelligence, not only in the fertile valleys of the south and west, but also on the less productive lands of the north and east. Germany is a country where agriculture has become almost a perfect science. In her agricultural colleges and uni versities, in her technical schools teaching a thorough knowledge of soils and tillage, of crop conditions, of fertilization, of cattle rais ing, fruit growing and gardening, everything that tends to rational agriculture and fitting means to the end is inculcated in a thorough manner, and many of her most expert scientists have devoted themselves since the days of Liebig and Pettenkofer to original research work in this line, experimenting with seeds and soils and temperatures and moistures, much in the same way in which similar work is being done in the United States in agricultural ex periment stations under State supervision or of that of the American Department of Agricul ture. Germany thus grows every variety of
grain and fruit produced within the temperate zone. Of cereals, wheat, rye, barley, oats, are raised in all sections of the country; spelt (about one-half million tons per annum) and maize or corn (popularly called in Germany wheat” ripen only in the south; much buckwheat grows in the north, and pota toes, lentils, beans and peas also thrive better in the northern half ; while flax and hemp, rape, poppy, caraway seed are raised mostly in the central hilly regions. But hops is pro duced as far north as the province of Posen, though the best by far comes from Bavaria, Baden and Wurttemberg. The beet root, which furnishes sugar for inland consumption and export, flourishes mostly in Saxony, Silesia, Hanover, Anhalt and Brunswick. It was in the Prussian province of Saxony, in fact in the vicinity of Magdeburg, Erfurt and Merse burg, that the sugar industry first arose, due to the special adaptability of the soil. The sys tem in vogue in Germany for many years, the so-called rotation,n allowing the land to lie fallow every third year, has been done away with long, ago, and the regular alternation of crops is supplemented by an orderly and plentiful application of fertilizers and soil foods. This systematic enrichment of the soil has resulted in a steady amelioration in effects obtained. The average yield per acre on every kind of crop has risen for the empire as a whole by about 137 per cent within the past 40 years, as partly shown in the table below: By far the most important part of the crop in Germany is that of rye, wheat, oats, barley and potatoes. Rye predominates, not only as a matter of expediency for climatic reasons, but also because rye bread for general use as a chief food is preferred by the whole nation, rich and poor alike, to wheat bread. German wheat, besides, is somewhat deficient in gluten and hence less nutritious. Flour of rye and wheat mixed is liked best by many. In 1913 there were in Germany 16,035,347 acres de voted to rye culture, only 4,935,432 to wheat, •11,095,338 to oats, 8,530,037 to potatoes, 4,134, 527 to barley. Despite the above brilliant show ing in enormous increased yield, however, there has been, year after year, more urgent need of large imports of cereals, meats, etc., and this not only because of the rapid growth in popu lation per square mile (that being now 317, according to the census figures of 1910), but because the diet of the nation had become more generous, not to say luxurious, with its rising wealth. The showing made, however, by the above table demonstrates clearly the superior methods, largely by means of the most efficient labor-saving machinery, employed in the empire in husbandry, methods which have enabled her to enlarge the total yield from her soil so enormously in spite of the fact that her agricultural population has not alone rela tively but even absolutely diminished greatly, millions being diverted to industrial pursuits in town and city. Of other products, besides cereals and hay, beet root, tobacco and hops are noticeable. The yield in sugar beet is larger in Germany than in any other country; this is partly, indeed, owing to the granting of export bonuses by the government (so that Germans at home have to pay more for German sugar than they do abroad) and to other means of encouraging the industry, such as favorable legislation, but also partly to the excellent methods of utilizing the beet and growing the one variety giving, on each particular soil, the best all-around results in saccharine percentage and quantity, the average beet giving no less than from 17 to 22 per cent of sugar. The sugar beet crop has, of course, shown corre sponding increase. It rose from 547,631 acres in 1882 to 1,369,062 acres in 1913, that being the last date on which reliable official figures. were published. The hop production, on the other hand, decreased within the same period from 132,087 acres to 67,922; so did the tobacco acreage, from 59,944 acres to 35,452, but in yield much more, namely, from 52,197 tons to 10,671. Viticulture has not made any appre ciable advance for many years. Vineyards ex ist, indeed, in the larger portion of Germany, from as far east as Silesia and the Kingdom of Saxony to the valleys of the Rhine and all its tributaries, notably the Main, Neckar, Moselle, Saan Nahe, etc., and to the sunny Suabian and Baden lowlands. But the wine really worth drinking is grown on a restricted territory. In 1913 vineyards covered 277,312 acres, and the wine made from the grapes grown averages in selling value about $27,000,000 per year, differing greatly in quantity and quality both, though the well-known vintages of Rhine and Moselle never fail to fetch good prices. It ought to be mentioned, though, that Germany imports right along twice as much wine as she exports, and that the ravages of the philloxera and other harmful insects have made wine-growing a rather risky occupation if depended on alone as.a source of income.