The Rigenarbeiten of the Lettes and Esthonians are the most cheerful and peaceful of all agricultural labours. The work is very light, is carried on simultaneously by all ages and sexes, and promotes soclablcncss, on account of the narrow space in which it is can-ied on. The people are particularly inchned to be friendly and cheerful, now that the fine rije grain, the precious and anxiously awaited result of the year's toil and labour, is at last safely reaped and gathered in. It is probably for tliis reason, that all the best and most popular songs of the peasantry ai^e for and of the Rige labours. It is extraordinary how attached to song and poetry the halt-savage Lettes and Esthonians are. When the girls trip over the barnlioor, scattering tho corn, or the men stand threshing it, or when the whole assemble after their work, sitting round the hearth by the liglit of the resinous pinewood, whicli they use for torches, it is always song and poetry that lightens their toil and cheers their repose.
In winter half the population is employed in the transport of goods. In summer the forests, on account of their marshy character, are in great part inaccessible to man, but the winter makes firm roads everywhere. On this account all transports from one place to another, and all wood and forest labours, are put oft' till the winter. As the whole plan of labour, and all the agricultural arrangements in this country, are made with a view to a snowy and severe winter, it may be imagined what expense, trouble, and vexation is occasioned by a mild one. If there be not plenty of snow and ice, and if the weather be not very cold, the forests and roads remain mai'shy, the communication with the towns is cut ofi^, the corn cannot be sold or exported without great cost and trouble, all building is at a standstill for want of wood, and the breweries and distilleries are at a loss for ice.
If June is without rain, and the hay is used up, the cattle are sure to suffer from famine, for the shortness of the summer prevents a second hay harvest. If the spring is unfavourable, the barley crops fai, and potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables are very scarce, so that the poor peasants, whose barley-porridge is their chief or only means of subsistence, are sure to suffer much from hunger. The failure of rye, liowever, is more ruinous than all. From rye is derived the principal revenue of every estate, and its abundance can alone supply all deficiencies.
In countries where the different seasons glide mildly into one another, there are always a hundred resources and makeshifts to supply a particular scarcity. Nowhere, consequently, is the agriculturist tormented by so many anxious cares as in these countries, and nowhere does the population fluctuate so continually between plenty and want. In bad hay-years, the cattle die by numbers, and after bad com harvests, the peasantry have to live entirely on the bread purchased at high prices by their lords.
The labours of the forest are the hardest and most oppressive of all. The quantity of wood consumed in these countries is almost inconceivable, partly because wood is used for the making of so many things for which we use iron, stone, and other materials, and partly on account of the wasteful profusion with which wood is employed.
The shoes of the peasants and the roofs of houses alone waste multitudes of trees, which die when the bark is stripped off them for these purposes. Enormous quantities of wood are burnt up in the stoves to warm the houses, the distilleries, and the Rigen. Upon one estate, of only three square miles, the yearly consumption of wood, for the lord and his family idone, amounted to 700 cubic fathoms. If this be taken as the average consumption, 400,000 cubic fathoms of wood are yearly burnt up in the houses of the nobility of the three provinces alone. As this quantity must at least be trebled, to include the wood used by the peasants and in the towns, every man, woman, or child, may be said to consume on an average a cubic fathom of wood yearly.
The transport of corn, like all oth'^r work, is performed in winter by large numbers, and like every other kind of labour, in the greatest haste.