a large tract of land;
but each individual cultivates his own estate, whether it be of wide or
of narrow extent. Thus the graff, or prince, though he be the owner of
an entire circle, is yet the only farmer within that circle. He does
not let an acre of ground to a tenant. But having built what he
conceives to be an adequate number of bouerin-hauses, he plants in each
of these a bouerman, and pays him for tilling the ground. These
bouerin-hauses, again, are all clustered together into villages, so
that the bouerman is never without an abundant society adapted to his
tastes; and very happily, albeit very rudely, his days and nights
appear to be spent.

The land in Bohemia does not, however, belong exclusively to any one
order in the community. Many bouermen are owners of their farms, some
of them to the extent of one hundred acres and more; while almost every
township has its territories, which, like the noble's estate, are
cultivated for the benefit of the burgh. But in all cases it is the
owner, and not the cultivator, to whom the proceeds of the harvest
belong. These are, indeed, gathered in and housed for him by his
representatives, who, in addition to some fixed money-payment, for the
most part enjoy the privilege of keeping a cow or two on the wastes
belonging to the manor; but all the risk and trouble of converting his
grain into money attaches to the proprietor of the soil.

Two results spring out of this order of things alike detrimental to the
well-being of society. First there does not exist, at least in the
agricultural districts, any middle class of society at all, which is
everywhere divided into two orders,--the gentry and the peasantry. In
cities and large towns the case is, of course, different; for there the
cultivation of letters and of trade has its influence on the human
mind; and professions hold something like the rank which ought of right
to belong to them when they are what is called liberal. But in the
country, even the doctor and the priest seldom find their way to a more
lordly board than that of the bouerman; and stand, in consequence, at
all times, on a level with the miller, the butcher, and the host of the
gasthof. Secondly, the nobles, having little ready money at command,
possess no means, whatever their inclination may be, materially to
improve the condition of their dependants; while their own time being
largely engrossed by the cares of buying and selling, they not
unfrequently negl