AGRICULTURE is of greater importance in Ba varia than in any other German State, and has reached there a degree of perfection surpassed only in a few countries. • Threatened with keen competition of new countries with unlimited agricultural resources, the Bavarian landholder was compelled to adopt every available means in order to increase the productiveness of the soil. With this end in view, numerous associa tions were formed in almost every department of agriculture. The buying of seeds and agri cultural machinery, storing of grain, raising of domestic animals, marketing of agricultural products, insurance of farm buildings and crops, and numerous other operations are all carried on largely through cooperative societies, which are rapidly growing in numbers and influence. A considerable proportion of the landholders are in the habit of insuring their crops. There were 211 agricultural loan and savings associations, with a membership of 21,753, in 1867; in 1897 their number had risen to 1797, with a member ship of 152,562. In his struggle against foreign competition the Bavarian landholder has not been left entirely to his own efforts. The State has come to his assistance in offering him reduced rates on the transportation of agricultural prod ucts, machinery. and manure, in establishing agricultural banks, in improving the breed of domestic animals, and in opening agricultural schools. That all of these measures have helped
to bring about a decided improvement in agri cultural methods is shown by the enormous in crease in the use of agricultural machinery in the last decades.
The chief crops in 1900, with the areas devoted to them, were as follows: Besides these crops there are raised many in dustrial plants. such as tobacco, beets, and rape seed. There are more than 50,000 vineyards, occupying an area of about 56.000 acres. The vine-growing industry is, however, largely con fined to the Palatinate, and shows little progress. Bavaria is one of the largest cattle-raising coun tries of Germany. The breeding of live stock is conducted with no less care and intelligence than the raising of grain, and numerous State studs are maintained for the purpose of improving the breed of horses.
The forests of Bavaria cover an area of about 6.250,000 acres, or about 33 per cent. of the total area of the kingdom, of which 49 per cent. belongs to private persons, 34 per cent. to the State, and the remainder mostly to the com munities. The annual income derived from the forests through the sale of timber and the rent of grazing land amounts to about $8,000,000.