The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1878-08-15
4 Sketch Of. German Life.

William Hewitt gives The following
graphic sketch of 'Life in Germany"
which will, perhaps, both amuse and
inform our readers.
Each German has his house, his Or
chard, his roadside trees, so laden with
fruit, that if he did not carefully prop
up and tie together with wooden
clamps, they would be torn asunder by
their own weight. lie has his corn, his
plot for mangel WuTzel, for potatoes, for
hemp, &c. He,is his own master, and he
therefore, and every branch of his fam
lily, have the strongest motives for con-
slant exertiOn. You see the effect of
this in his industry and his economy.
In Germany, nothing is lost. The
produce of she trees and COWS are car
ried to market. Much fruit is dried
for. winter use. You see wooden trays
Of plums, cherries, and sliced apples,
lying in the sun to dry. You see strings
of them hanging from the chamber
windows in the sun. The COWS are
kept up for the greater part of the year,
and every green thing is collected for
them. Every little nook where the
grass grows, by roadside, and river,
and brook, is carefully cut with the
sickle, and carried home on the heads
Of the women and children, in baskets,
OF tied in large cloths. Nothing of any
kind that can possibly be made of any
use, is lost. Weeds, nettles, nay, the
very good-grass which covers waste
places, is cut and taken for the cows.
You see the children standing in the
streets of the villages, in streams which
generally run down them, busy wash
ing these weeds before they are given
to the cattle. They carefully collect
the leaves of the marsh-grass, careful
ly cut their potato tops for them, and
even, if other things fail, gather green
leaves from the woodlands. One can
not help thinking continually of the
enormous waste of such things in Eng
land-of the vast quantities of grass
on banks by road-sides, in openings Of
plantations, in lanes, in chureh-yards,
where grass from year to year springs
and dies, but which, if carefully cut,
would maintain many thousand COWS
for the poor.
To pursue still further this subject or
German economy. The very cuttings
Of the vines are dried and preserved for
winter fodder. The tops and refuse Of
the hemp serve as bedding, for the
COWS; nay, even the rough stalls of the
poppies, after the heads have been
gathered for oil, are saved, and all
these are converted into manure for
the land. When these are not sufficient,
the children are sent into the woods to
gather moss; and all our readers famil-
lar with Germany, will remember to
have seen them coming hOmeWard,
with large bundles of this on their
heads. In autumn, the falling leaves
are gathered and stacked for the same
purpose. The fr-cones, which with us
lie and rot in the woods, are carefully
collected and sold for lighting fires.
In short the economy and care of the
German peasant are an example to all
Europe. he has for yesrs-nay ages
been doing that, as it regards agricul-
tural management, TO which the British
public is but Just beginning to open its
eyes. Time, also is as carefully econo-
mized as everything else. The Ger
mans are early risers, as may well
be conceived, when the children, many
Of whom come from considerable dis
tances, are in school at six in the morn.
ing.