Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/356

 344 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE Mentz. The territory is small, but remarkably pro- ductive from the river to the tops of the hills. So beautiful is it that not only its own inhabitants, but travellers also, look on it as an enchanted land. The soil is so fruitful and rich that everything grows with remarkable luxuriance and ripens quickly. The same farm grows the greatest variety of fruits and cereals, not to mention the vine.' In 1500 Johannes Butzbach writes in his ' Wander- biichlein ' : ' The Ehine Province is a blessed land, rich in wine, fruit, cereals, wood, and water ; its beautiful villages resemble cities ; the stately Ehine runs through it, rich in islands containing broad plains. The inhabi- tants are brave and prosperous. The fruit gardens are most valuable. I knew one poor man who realised in one year thirty florins from the cherries which he sold in Mentz.' The culture of fruit was most successfully carried on in the Ehine Province and in Bavaria. The ' Book of Fruits, Trees, and Vegetables ' speaks of entire groves of fruit trees surrounding the villages of the Ehine Pro- vince, ' and,' writes the author, ' they are well and most intelligently cultivated ; so also in Bavaria. I remarked the beauty of the fruit trees and the care which was given to them. For a small sum the poor man can lay in apples, pears, and nuts sufficient for himself, wife, and children during the winter time. This industrious thrift is very praiseworthy and ought to be imitated.' The variety of apples differing from each other in form, colour, and taste is indescribable. Kantzow, writing of Pomerania, says : ' This land produces more than twenty times more corn, rye, wheat, barley, oats, peas, buckwheat, and hops than