the Prussian countryfolk whom their lords regarded as so many head of labour. But he dared not shake the pillars of his army and of his treasury by giving the peasant leave to quit the soil. He desired to retain serfdom, but only in its mildest form. He set his heart on making every serf a hereditary tenant at a 杭州滨江街女最多的地方 money rent. This was, however, repugnant both to the nobles, who feared that they would not be able to secure labourers for hire, and to the peasants, who feared that they would in future be obliged to bear the loss when their cattle died and to pay 杭州夜网的信息靠谱吗 their arrears of taxation themselves. The proposed reform, as well as an attempt to assign limits to the labour that the lords might lawfully exact, had therefore to be given up.

A change of still more unquestionable benefit, of which England had enjoyed the fruits for fully two centuries, likewise proved impracticable in Prussia, even on the 杭州丝袜mm domains of the Crown. Each holder, whether noble or peasant, had a number of scattered strips of land in huge fields which were unenclosed and were ploughed and sown in common by the labour of the whole village. The abuses of such a system were 杭州按摩快餐多少钱 manifold. It stereotyped the succession313 of crops, checked individual enterprise, prevented the high cultivation which depended on the aid of walls or hedges, and exposed the strips of the industrious to the spreading tares of his slothful neighbour. 杭州最好的spa会所 Frederick, once more guided by his loftier outlook on affairs, ordered commissioners to remedy this unprofitable system by a rearrangement of all the holdings. Peasants, bailiffs, ministers, all protested in vain, but Frederick in his turn commanded in vain. All that he could accomplish in his lifetime was the severance of noble from 杭州spa推荐 peasant land. He was compelled to content himself with abolishing practical slavery as distinguished from serfdom, with codifying the services due from the peasants, and with other minor reforms.

Whatever may have been its effect in the long run, 杭州油压可以干 however, there can be little doubt that it was Frederick’s deeds rather than his laws which conferred the greatest immediate benefit upon Prussian agriculture. His subjects were assured, as were those of no other great monarch in Europe, that there would be a market for their produce in years of plenty, relief of their necessities in years of dearth, and succour from the State where fire or flood or pest would otherwise have ruined them. This sense of security against starvation, though now so common that it is difficult to appreciate it, was then so rare that thousands of freemen left 杭州水磨iso全套 their native lands for the despotism and sterile soil of Prussia.

In the sphere of industry Frederick was less hampered than in that of agriculture by the inertia of his people. He found Prussia making few commodities314 save the simplest and 杭州桑拿网vip账号密码 exporting only three,—wool,

linen, and wood. Before he died his minister, Hertzberg, could boast that every conceivable manufacture found a home in his dominions.

The record of the steps by which the transformation was effected is simply a further series of illustrations of