It is an undeniable fact that the Tyrolean is characterised to a high degree by a practical sense for everything he tackles and an eagerness to work. Tyroleans excelled in all fields of science, art and industry, just as many have achieved a good career and a respectable position abroad thanks to their entrepreneurial spirit and proficient business skills. The craftsmen from Tyrol, who go abroad in droves to find work, are also valued and well paid everywhere. But there is one peculiarity that characterises the Tyrolean above all others, and which hardly anywhere else achieves such validity and importance as with him, and that is - his striving for independence in his own homeland. The vast majority of emigrants are drawn back to the mountains. Once the Tyrolean labourer has acquired a small capital with toil and sweat, even if it is only a few hundred guilders, he uses it to buy a "Heimatl" or at least a field. The most remarkable thing about this, however, is that he only cultivates his land out of air and love of labour - a fact that is easy to prove.

For example, let us take a field in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck, where 1 acre in the better locations costs 1500 fl. including court costs. Of this, the (only 5%) interest amounts to 75 fl., plus 8 double loads of fertiliser placed on the field in Türkenfeld at 48 fl. Harrowing and building together with sowing 10 fl., "basin", "heaping" 8 fl., removal, insertion, removal and "removal" 12 fl., and 8 fl. for the stoning, this results in a total of 161 fl. as expenditure. If one now calculates an average of 60 rows of Turks at 2 fl. each, straw and cobs 20 fl., the income amounts to 140 fl. - The owner therefore works such a field for free and because he is not forced to do so, there is no other explanation left than that he does it for pleasure. 

However, most of the work is done on the side - as they say - "one does not count one's own labour" and yet gets something in the house, which is more and more common for workers who are often without employment in winter, such as bricklayers, carpenters, etc. of greater or lesser extent have become more and more common in recent times, and such an owner, who on top of that often owns barely half of the purchase capital of his "arable land" himself and owes the rest on it, will, if not ruined, at least be severely affected for many years to come. As long as grain remains at the current price, it will be possible to get by through hard labour and hardship, but what if grain prices fall? What if the Pustertal railway shortens the distance that Hungarian grain has to travel to reach us by almost half? What if, in Hungary itself, branch lines and good roads make it easier to deliver the grain to the stations (which has cost the most so far) and the railway authorities themselves finally realise that by reducing the fare they are not only promoting general prosperity but also their own? If, for example, wheat is bought in Hungary for 2 fl. and the freight is also 2 fl. What effect will this have on our own products, on our entire soil culture?

It is high time that farmers took this question seriously. For if the further expansion of the railway network in the east (including the countries bordering on Hungary) makes it possible for us to buy a hectare of wheat for only 2 1/2 fl., the price of the fruit mostly grown here by the Turks will be reduced by half, and the present enormous value of the fields themselves will naturally be diminished as a result. The importance of the question is obvious and deserves our attention to the highest degree. It is true that the railway is of immense benefit to our country because we have to obtain 1/3 of our needs from outside, which is why it is obvious that our total wealth must increase if we can obtain this additional demand more cheaply than is possible through Are and can seek further sales sources for our own export articles. Nevertheless, the completion of the railway network will have to bring about some far-reaching changes in our agricultural conditions in order to offset the individual detrimental consequences as far as possible through more modern utilisation of the land. First and foremost, this may well involve increasing livestock farming and, consequently, better cultivation of fodder herbs and especially the Alps.