Very much the same must be said of Germany.  Wherever the peasants could resist the plunder of their lands, they have retained them in communal ownership, which largely prevails in Wurttemberg, Baden, Hohenzollern, and in the Hessian province of Starkenberg.(29) The communal forests are kept, as a rule, in an excellent state, and in thousands of communes timber and fuel wood are divided every year among all inhabitants; even the old custom of the Lesholztag is widely spread:  at the ringing of the village bell all go to the forest to take as much fuel wood as they can carry.(30) In Westphalia one finds communes in which all the land is cultivated as one common estate, in accordance with all requirements of modern agronomy.  As to the old communal customs and habits, they are in vigour in most parts of Germany.  The calling in of aids, which are real fetes of labour, is known to be quite habitual in Westphalia, Hesse, and Nassau.  In well-timbered regions the timber for a new house is usually taken from the communal forest, and all the neighbours join in building the house.  Even in the suburbs of Frankfort it is a regular custom among the gardeners that in case of one of them being ill all come on Sunday to cultivate his garden.(31)

In Germany, as in France, as soon as the rulers of the people repealed their laws against the peasant associations—­that was only in 1884-1888—­these unions began to develop with a wonderful rapidity, notwithstanding all legal obstacles which were put in their way(32) “It is a fact,” Buchenberger says, “that in thousands of village communities, in which no sort of chemical manure or rational fodder was ever known, both have become of everyday use, to a quite unforeseen extent, owing to these associations” (vol. ii. p. 507).  All sorts of labour-saving implements and agricultural machinery, and better breeds of cattle, are bought through the associations, and various arrangements for improving the quality of the produce begin to be introduced.  Unions for the sale of agricultural produce are also formed, as well as for permanent improvements of the land.(33)

From the point of view of social economics all these efforts of the peasants certainly are of little importance.  They cannot substantially, and still less permanently, alleviate the misery to which the tillers of the soil are doomed all over Europe.  But from the ethical point of view, which we are now considering, their importance cannot be overrated.  They prove that even under the system of reckless individualism which now prevails the agricultural masses piously maintain their mutual-support inheritance; and as soon as the States relax the iron laws by means of which they have broken all bonds between men, these bonds are at once reconstituted, notwithstanding the difficulties, political, economical, and social, which are many, and in such forms as best answer to the modern requirements of production.  They indicate in which direction and in which form further progress must be expected.