The religious instruction I received of the Lutheran pastor Bode, preparatory to my confirmation, produced no effect upon my mind in favour of the tr… - Albrecht Daniel Thaer

The proprietor should always direct his attention to obtain from his land a gradual increase of produce, or to augment its value continually. The farmer only desires the greatest profit during the continuance of his lease, without caring for the value of the land afterwards. "Whilst the proprietor can content himself with a trifling produce during a few years, in order to attain greater and more durable profit subsequently, the tenant must, on the contrary, endeavour to obtain the greatest produce, even though its amount should be diminished during the latter years of his lease; because the proprietor who wishes to farm on the best system, finds at the same time both pleasure and profit in laying out on his property as much capital as he can spare, whilst the tenant, on the contrary, withdraws as much of his pecuniary resources as possible, to employ it in other ways, or to place it at interest. The improvement of the land constitutes the pleasure of the proprietor, while the mere occupying farmer only thinks of augmenting his income. Thus the longer the lease may be, the more do the interests of the landlord and tenant become identified; the shorter the term, the more conflicting are those interests. With a lease of 24 years, a tenant ought, at least during the first two-thirds of its duration, to follow out the views of the proprietor. But the time will come when he will act on different principles, and endeavour to extract from the land a return in proportion to his outlay at the commencement.
To this must be added, that a tenant cannot have the means of laying out so much on the land as the proprietor, even if he wished to do so. The latter must pay the rent, whilst a proprietor anxious to improve can economize something from the net produce to expend on his property. The first may be compared to a merchant who trades on borrowed money; the second to one who speculates with his own funds. The former must first provide for his rent, the latter need only think of extending his speculations.

The true yield of business is determined less by the size of the estate than by the sum of the investment.

In my eighteenth year, my father sent me to the . The first winter I did not leave the Anatomical School, and although I gave myself up to the most intense study, I willingly entered into all the gaities and amusements so much sought by German students, but avoided carefully debaucheries of any kind; they gave me the cognomen, Half Benommist, owing to my puerile look and feeble and weak voice. Unzer and Ebeling, two students in physic, took me under their powerful protection, and extricated me out of many scrapes.