Thousands of Dutchmen are busy catch ing fish in the North Sea. Others are sailors, trading with America and with the large Dutch colonies in the East Indies.
Many are busy loading and unloading the goods which come to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and which are to go by smaller boats on up the river Rhine into Germany and Switzerland.
The Dutch city of Rotterdam, on one of the mouths of the Rhine, is like Ant werp in having the trade of more than one country. Here are boats of many shapes and sizes, so close together that sometimes you can step from one boat to another. Big black ocean steamers have come loaded from Montreal, Galveston, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires, and from the north of Sweden. These ships are anchored in the middle of the stream. On one side of each boat men are unload ing freight into the long river boats that go up the Rhine to Germany and Swit zerland. From the other side of the ship, freight is being loaded into the short, stubby canal boats for less distant places in Holland and Belgium.
338. of France, Bel gium, and Holland, is Germany, a country larger than England or France, and with more people than either of them. Ger many is made up of a number of states. Before the World War, many of the states were ruled by kings, princes, and dukes, while the whole country was ruled by an emperor called the Kaiser. There was also a Parliament, which made some of the laws, but the Kaiser had much more power than the king of England or the president of France. At the end of the war, the Kaiser-ran away to Holland, and Germany is now a republic. ' The Germans are a very well educated people. Nearly everybody in Ger many can read and write, and there are fine universities and trade schools in many of the cities. These schools have taught the people how to do many things, such as to build ships and railroads, and to manufacture ma chines, chemicals, cloth, dyes, and fer tilizers. Because the people were so well educated, Germany had built up an enormous foreign trade before the World War.
339. North larger part of Germany is in the great, low, central plain of Europe. For miles and miles one can see only the same level plain. No natural boundaries, such as mountains or rivers, divide the land of Germany from the land of Holland. Instead there are rows of boundary stones, as there are also between Holland and Belgium, and be tween Belgium and France. Much of the German plain has sandy soil, which is not very fertile. By skilful farming and the use of fertilizers, however, the Germans have made it rich, and can raise rye, wheat, sugar beets, and potatoes for men, and barley, oats, and hay for animals. One might walk for many days and see only this flat, sandy plain, dotted with villages, from which men and women, boys and girls, go out to work in the surrounding fields.
The chief foods of the poorer people are potatoes and black rye bread. No other people use so many potatoes as the Ger mans. Potato flour is used, together with wheat flour and rye flour, to make bread. Dry potatoes are fed to the pigs and cows. Alcohol that is made from potatoes is sometimes used to run automobiles.
340. Central Germany has low moun tains, something like the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. They are often covered with forests, which, like those of France, are well cared for. Forests cover one-fourth of the German land. The people who live in the German hill country often have little farms in the valleys, on which they work in summer, and then make wood-carvings and toys in winter.
South of the Central Highlands is the upper Danube Valley (Sec. 357) with its farm lands, forests, and mountain pastures.
341. The Rhine physical map shows that the Rhine valley runs right through the highlands from the Swiss Alps to the sea. The river has been a high way for traders between Italy, Switzer land, and Holland for many hundreds of years. The banks of the river are often high, with castles on the tops of the hills in places where it was easy for people to pro tect themselves in the warlike times of the past.