Precisely similar was the fate of the smaller provincial towns, as far as one can see from the preserved data. We will give only one example from the same province. The old church records of Ummerstadt, an agricultural town near Coburg, famed, from olden times, throughout the country for its good pottery, report as follows:--"Although in the year 1632 the whole country, as also the said little town, was very populous, so that it alone contained more than one hundred and fifty citizens, and up to eight hundred souls, yet from the ever-continuing war troubles, and the constant quartering of troops, the people became in such wise enervated, that from great and incessant fear, a pestilence sent upon us by the all-powerful and righteous God, carried off as many as five hundred men in the years 1635 and 1636; on account of this lamentable and miserable condition of the time, no children were born into the world in the course of two years. Those whose lives were still prolonged by God Almighty, have from hunger, the dearness of the times, and the scarcity of precious bread, eaten and lived upon bran, oil-cakes, and linseed husks, and many also have died of it; many also have been dispersed over all countries, most of whom have never again seen their dear fatherland. In the year 1640, during the Saalfeldt encampment, Ummerstadt became a city of the dead or of shadows; for during eighteen weeks no man dared to appear therein, and all that remained was destroyed. Therefore the population became quite thin, and there were not more than a hundred souls forthcoming." In 1850 the place had eight hundred and ninety-three inhabitants. Still more striking is another observation, which may be made from the tables of the Meiningen villages. It is only in our century that the number of men and cattle of all kinds has again reached the height which it had already attained in 1634. Nay, the number of houses was still in 1849 less than in 1634, although, there the inmates of the smallest village houses, even the poorest, still anxiously endeavour to preserve their own dwellings. It is true that there is a trifling increase of the number of inhabitants in 1849 over that in 1634; but even this increase is dubious when we consider that the number of inhabitants in 1634 had probably already experienced a diminution from sixteen years of war. Thus we are assuredly justified in concluding that two centuries were necessary, at least for this tract of Germany, to restore the population and productive power of the country to its former standard. These assumptions are supported by other observations. The agriculture of the country, before the Thirty years' war, nay even the relative proportion of the value of corn to that of silver, at a time when the export of corn was only exceptional, lead to the same conclusions.