hectares East Elbia* Rest of Germany All of Germany Under 5 ha. 8.7% 21.0% 16.2% 5 - 20 ha. 21.3% 41.0% 33.4% 20 - 100 ha. 29.5% 29.9% 29.8% Over 100 ha. 40.5% 8.1% 20.6% Over 20 ha. 70.0% 38.0% 50.4% * East Elbia: Posen and West Prussia, East Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg-Berlin, Silesia, Mecklenburg. iii) Consequently by all such means, the eastern Junker landlords acquired about a million hectares (2.5 million acres), of peasant lands by 1860s. iv) The Junkers also gained economically by having their estates completely separated from peasant holdings: (1) Note: when, in earlier times, landlords had leased out portions of their demesnes to peasant, they often did so in the traditional Common Field form of scattered plough strips, intermingled with the demesne strips that the landlord had retained (2) This curious system, also found in the West (and also in England), had the advantage for the landlord of having the peasants plough these demesne lands for the landlord (virtually free labour) (3) Now, after peasant emancipation, the manorial lords were thus better able to enclose their own lands to create compact often vast farms: i.e., enclosure without concern for peasant property rights. (4) With enclosure and untrammelled completely separated property rights, Junker landowners could now use their lands more effectively as collateral to borrow money through mortgages. v) Many and finally most of those Junkers who enclosed and amalgamated their estates, and similarly also the larger peasant farmers who similarly engaged in enclosures, quickly modernized their
farming techniques. (1) They replaced the traditional three field systems with convertible husbandry and multiple course crop rotations, thus greatly reducing the fallow. (2) Subsequently as we shall see they also led the way in applying chemical fertilizers and steam-powered farm machinery. vi) The necessary labour force to work these large estates or commercial farms came from the growing number of dispossessed landless peasants: in sharp contrast to France, eastern Germany had a surplus rather than a scarcity of agricultural peasant labour. b) The Lands West of the Elbe River: i) Here the land distribution was much more akin to that found in northern France after the Revolution: i.e., strongly skewed to small-scale peasant farming. ii) In south-west Germany, especially, most of the land was distributed in the form of very small scale peasant holdings: smaller indeed than was typical in France. iii) In central Germany, however, just west of the Elbe: we find a predominance of medium sized holdings (smaller nobility, gentry, richer peasants). iv) From the 1850s the spread of the railways, as in France, greatly promoted the spread of enclosures, by promoting the commercialization of agriculture, and by reducing farming costs. v) furthermore, the development of coal mining was also important: in reducing the need for wood fuel and thus permitting much forest land to be cleared and enclosed. vi) Again, as was the case in France, enclosure in western Germany did not generally lead to estates: again enclosure was more in the form of reallocation of peasant strips into compact but small farms. 5. Technical Advances in German Agriculture a) Productivity Gains: i) Of all European countries (certainly continental countries) after 1850, Germany -- central and eastern Germany -- made far and away the greatest technical advances in agriculture, achieved by far the greatest productivity gains. ii) Those gains were all the more impressive, when we consider the relatively poor soils and harsh climate involved for much of German agriculture, compared to northern France and England. b) The initial phase of productivity advances: the cultivation of leguminous crops: i) Leguminous or nitrogen fixing crops: (1) were planted as fodder crops, in form of multiple course crop rotations, to permit sharp reductions in the amount of fallow, or to eliminate the need for fallow lands.
Brandenburg’, Past & Present, no. 108 (August 1985), p. 100. Table 2. The Populations of Europe, by Regions, 1500 - 1800 in millions Region 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 North West 7.6 9.5 11.0 14.3 15.1 17.4 25.3 NW % of Europe 12.5% 13.6% 14.1% 19.2% 18.1% 17.9% 20.7% Central Europe 29.0 33.8 36.9 33.5 38.2 43.8 53.5 Cent % of Europe 47.6% 48.3% 47.4% 45.0% 45.7% 45.1% 43.8% 18.3 20.0 22.3 19.6 22.8 26.5 31.2 Med % of Europe 30.0% 28.6% 28.6% 26.3% 27.3% 27.3% 25.5% Eastern Europe 6.0 6.6 7.7 7.1 7.4 9.4 12.2 Eastern % of Europe 9.9% 9.5% 9.9% 9.5% 8.9% 9.7% 10.0% TOTAL 60.9 69.9 77.9 74.5 83.5 97.1 122.2 Source: Jan De Vries, ‘Population’, in T.A. Brady, H.A. Oberman, and J.D. Tracy, eds., Handbook of European History, 1400-1600, Vol. I: Structures and Assertions (Leiden, 1994), p. 13.