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We highly appreciated the fresh air of our rural surroundings, and the gardens which yielded excellent strawberries, cherries and plums and provided ample scope for enjoyment. But the farm which stood close to the grounds was my principal attraction. Farming is carried on in Germany very differently from England, because of the exigencies of the climate. As the cattle are allowed to graze during the hot summer months only and are kept indoors the greater part of the year they are sumptuously housed, and their stables are a great feature. They are milked indoors, the dairy is not set apart as in England but is one with the rest of the buildings, which besides stabling for horses, carts and implements of all sorts, generally includes a distillery. In the Grünebourg a strong alcoholic liquor called Schnaps, not unlike the Russian Vodki, was distilled from potatoes, and of this beverage the peasantry were inordinately fond. In the centre of the farmyard was a well surrounded by lime trees from which water was drawn up in buckets, and in front of it was a huge dungheap, valued by the bailiff as the apple of his eye. The farmyard also swarmed with poultry which were allowed to mix promiscuously irrespective of breed, as the fowls were only kept to lay eggs and were not fit to be eaten. The farm buildings formed three [two] sides of a square, and the fourth [third] consisted of the bailiff’s house which looked on the yard and the chestnut avenue.

The yard was in a perpetual state of bustle and animation, and long remained my favourite playground. I could see how the cows were fed or milked, how the butter was churned, or the Schnaps was distilled. Carts came in heavy-laden, the hay was stored away in lofts, the corn was threshed. Then the bull had to be teazed, mice and rats had to be trapped, and cats – the object of my special aversion – hunted by my dogs, much to the annoyance of the bailiff who prized them highly for they destroyed the vermin. But he always ended by forgiving me and then treated me to thick slices of black bread and butter.

The Grünebourg though near Frankfort might have been situated many miles away, and was to all intents and purposes quite in the country. Since then great changes have taken place. The stripling chestnuts have grown into a stately avenue, the grassland which surrounded the garden has been fenced in, planted and transformed into a park; the farm has been pulled down and ranges of glasshouses erected on its site. But for the one side which looks towards the Taunus over long stretches of grass and arable land, the park is surrounded by the all-absorbing town the view from the terrace on the relatively distant spires of the city, the uplands beyond, and the great wood, is marred by huge erections of brick and plaster; the quiet lanes have been turned into public highways, and instead of the songs of the labourers on their way home from their work in the fields the clatter of wheels now breaks the silence of the summer evenings. The resources of the city are brought within close reach of the Grünebourg, but the charm of country life with its perhaps idle and trivial yet ever-varying and genial pursuits, has vanished for ever.