ruins, and there was no money, and frequently no good wood wherewith to renew them. For the woods had suffered much from the war; where there was an opportunity of sale, the foreign commanders had caused large forests to be felled and sold. In the neighbourhood of fortified places the stems were employed for fortifications, which then required large quantities of wood; and after the peace much was felled for the necessary erection of villages and suburbs. The farm also bore little produce. Not only teams, but hands, were wanting for the tillage; and the average price of corn, after the war, was so low that the product hardly paid for the carriage, and in consequence they kept few horses. New capital was difficult to acquire; money was dear, and mortgages on the properties of nobles were not considered an advantageous investment. They, undoubtedly, gave a certain amount of security; but the interest was too often irregularly payed, and the capital could not easily be recovered. The acquisition of mortgaged goods, also, by the creditor, was possible only in certain cases, and by tedious proceedings; it was sometimes even dangerous, for the friends and neighbours of the debtor would threaten the new possessor with their hatred. In the eastern frontier countries the dissatisfied creditors endeavoured to indemnify themselves by selling their bonds to Polish nobles. These procured the money by making reprisals on travellers from the district of the debtor, and taking the sum from the first comers. This had, indeed, happened before the great war; and repeated prohibitions show how much commerce suffered from those deeds of violence.[50] By such evils even a sensible landed proprietor was soon easily thrown into a desperate position. A bad harvest, or a mortality among the cattle, would probably ruin him. But the chief evil was that a great number had not sense enough to occupy themselves perseveringly with their farming, and to limit their expenses within the certain income of the property. Thus few were prosperous. Most of them passed their lives amidst embarrassments, lawsuits, and endless debts; even those who had entered on the possession of their property with better hopes, became at last, like the greater number of those of their own class, members of the great association which the people nicknamed "Krippenreiter."