When in December, after much autumnal change, the snow roads are at length firm, all the different populations of the estates lose no time in taking advantage of the ice, and all the paths and roads are seen filled by long processions of small sledges, each drawn by one horse, and laden with a few sacks of corn, hastening to the seaport towns. The corn scarcely travels faster on the sea than on these snow-roads ; but sometimes a sudden run of mild weather stops them for a while. In vain the poor horses then struggle through the wet snow ; the roads are seen covered with broken sledges, and the grain, which has often travelled fifty miles towards Riga, Libau, or Reval, is brought home again or left by the roadside. Sach vexation, waste, and trouble, does the warm breath of the south occasion by an unseasonable visit.
The horses and oxen of the Baltic provinces are particularly small and mean looking. A meagre Livonian cow is the very picture of want and misery. The loads which the horses can carry are so lilliputian, and the milk given by the cows is so scanty, that it is only their great numbers which can supply their deficiencies. It is curious how universally applicable in this country is the observation, that small powers collected in great masses, accomplish every thing. Drop by drop the cask is filled, to yield afterwards abundance only to a few.
In many districts of Germany a few cows give milk enough to support a whole family ; while in the Baltic provinces a peasant will often have a whole herd of horses, cows, sheep, and goats, and yet not enjoy plenty. In the same way, a nobleman who possesses perhaps some thousands of cows, oxen, and horses, will by no means revel in abundance.
The cow of this country is naturally of a poor race, and appears stiU more so, in consequence of its bad and scanty food. In very good years they are fed on hay, but otherwise must content themselves with straw and marsliWeeds. The frequent floods which occur in this rainy country, injure the grass and herbs, so as to cause epidemic diseases among the CLittle.
The most interesting among the domestic animals is the horse. It is small in stature and strength, but it is admirable for its extraordinary powers of sustaining fatigue and hardship. The horses are certainly the best labourers in the Baltic provinces, and not only does the severest and hardest work in the country fall upon them, but they have also to bear the heaviest part of that yoke of slavery which weighs down its original inhabitants. The manner in which the Lettes treat their horses is one of the most unamiable points in their character. They revenge a hundredfold upon the poor patient little creatures the wrongs that they themselves suffer : they take scarcely any care of them, and sometimes literally beat them to death. Yet these horses must perform not only the sen-ices customary with us, but many others besides. It is inconceivable with what energy, activity, and endurance the little animals have been gifted by nature. A bundle of dry straw seems to refresh them as much as an abundant meal of oats would a German horse. They scarcely ever seem to rest or sleep, night or day. They are often left in the open air when in a violent perspiration, unprotected against the bitterest cold, and yet tliey never seem the worse for it. This cm-ious race of horses is spread, not only over Corn-land, Livonia, and Esthonia, but over Finnland, Ingennannland, and jiart of Lithuania.
Backward as the art of agriculture certainly is in these countries, and backward as it must remain, while the present feudal constitution of society
lasts, yet It is undeniable that a new spirit is now active among the a^^ricultural population, caused partly by an impulse from Germany, and partly by the very precarious condition of the present feudal institutions. The first step towards their abolition, the nominal emancipation of the serfs has already taken place, for the peasant may now, by law, leave his lord's estate for that of another. The second step, legalizing' the right of a peasant to hold land and property, remains yet to be taken. Many of the nobles wish for the total abolition of feudalism, and some have even done away with slavery on their own estates, and are served by hired labourers.