It is true that during the last two centuries, agriculture, owing to the mighty effects of foreign traffic, has developed itself in an entirely new direction. The countryman also now cultivates field vegetables, clover, and other herbage for fodder, which were unknown before the Thirty years' war, and agricultural produce is more lucrative for an equal amount of population. Perhaps our ancestors lived in a poorer style, and farmed less. We can compare the stock of cattle. The number of cattle kept now in the villages is precisely the same as before the war; they have still the short, thick, curly-woolled Spanish herds, which used to be reared in the pens of the peasants; the old wool fell in long locks; but judging from the value of the cloth and stuffs woven from it, and the price of sheep at that time, it must have been good. On the other hand, the stock of horses has diminished by three fourths in comparison with 1634. This striking circumstance can only be thus explained: that the traditions of the troopers of the middle ages exercised an influence even upon agriculture; that the rearing of horses was more profitable than now, on account of the bad roads which made a distant transport of corn impossible, whilst the lowing of cattle in the narrow farm-yards of the towns was so general that the sale of milk and butter paid little; and finally, that a larger portion of the country people were better able to maintain teams. The breaking up of the ground was then, as may be seen from the old farm books in Thuringia, somewhat--but not considerably--less than now. In the present day the number of goats and of cattle belonging to small farmers has increased, as also the number of oxen, which probably in Middle and Southern Germany are now finer and higher bred than formerly. This is a decided progress of the present day. But on the whole, reckoning the amount of fodder required, the number of beasts which are maintained with advantage is very inconsiderably larger at present than in 1634. Thus Germany, in comparison with its happier neighbours in England and the Low Countries, was thrown back about two hundred years.