Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-05-15
DUTCH CATTLE AND FARMING.

The April Report from the Department
Of Agriculture contains an interesting arti-
c,e Oh Dutch Cattle from the pen of Charles
Mueller, Esq, United States Consul at
Amsterdam. On former occasion we
noticed the early enterprise, and engineer
ing science of the Netherlanders, by which
they fenced out the sea, and raised grain
aud fine dairy stock on land redeemed from
the alternate overflow of rivers and the
ocean. In confirmation Of the view which
makes Holland the center Of modern civili-
cation, Mr.. Mueller says: scientific farm
ing fourished in the Netherlands at time
when in other countries agricul-
ture stood where the Roman invader
had left il; and there is every reason TO be-
lieve that many appliances of modern farm
i. were known to aud made use Of by the
Datch peasaptry of remote days. At the
agricultural museum at Utrecht nay be seen
machines handed down from immemorisl
times which, beyond all doubt, served to
facilitate the process of threshing, mo Ving
and ether agricultural operations" a
people who greatly exceled in fuilding
windmills and pumps, may have been the
first to construct windmills for cleaning
grain, with riddles and fire siev"s. Certain
it is, that English short horns, turaips, and
tame grasses, came from Holland. TIE
enterprise OF the Dutch is shown by the
fact thSt, as early as 528 of the Christian
era, they settled a colony in Thuringia,
germany, and formed the towns of Fries
enfield snd Belgesheim. In after years the
sesutiful grass lands along the E!be and
Weser, and their fine dairy stock attracted
the attention of German princes. Bishops
and eli educated men admired the green
pastures and rich meadows of the Low
countries. In the year HOG the Bishop of
Bremen ceded several districts Of his pos
sessions to Dutch settlers with the under
standing that all marshes should be
drained, and converted into meadows.
Ii is Interesting TO know that such was the
value Of good meadows, other ecclesisstic-
al bodies, as well as temporal princes, fol-
lowed his example and got Dutch farmers
to settle on their lands. st. Vicelin was
the first ruler in HolsteiD, who, seeing the
luxurisnt pastures made by the Dutch near
Bremen, resolved to introduce this class of
scientific farmers upon his possessions, and
TO him ard his successors is Holstein main
ly indebted for its wonderful Improvement
so early as the twelfth century. That
grass culture should spread steadily eight
hundred years from Holland and hardly
reach the Southern States, seems extraor-
finary.
In early times land was SO abundant and
cheap, in the South, that no one resllV felt
any necessity for making meadows and
pastures; and in this condition several gen.
GRAFTON 8 lived and disd-f rgetting all that
their European forefathers knew of the
Guilty .tlon of European grasses as farm
crops. After generations, born and raised in
America in q mild climate, they are no lon
ger the people that first settled in the South,
with European ideas, hut they are Amerl-
can planters, who know neXt TO nothing OF
the habits and customs of the fatberland. We
are perfectly wea1ed from the old country,
and bClorg wholly to the New World, and
it is perhaps an even chance whether our
civilization, morals and christianity viii re-
trogra ie or improve in the rext 100 years.
That we deplete American coil more now
from IA Jag many plOws in one year than
we did in Fl e, City years ago, admits no
rsnnable doubt. That our legislation has
improved in honesty in so years, no one pre-