Germany in 1912: Images 61 to 70

Working gardens -- Every Sunday a joyful murmur fillt the vast rural town; families get together and dances are organized.

Almost every day for several weeks in Friedrichfelde, a village 14 kilometres from Berlin, a convoy of twenty-five thousand geese arrives from all parts of Germany and Russia.

Right after they leave the cars they form a column and march majestically and loudly, lined up just like German soldiers going to a parade.

The bath. -- After the fatigue and jolts of a long voyage by rail, the geese are made, upon their arrival, to make their way into large pools to rid themselves of the dust of the road.

The inspection. -- The geese then march one by one before an official veterinarian. Those that are recognized as improper for consumption are culled; the ones that are doubtful are subject to quarantine.

Goose Park. -- Geese recognized as healthy are immediately put into the vast enclosures where merchants come to make their choice. They stay there for hardly any time at all, hardly one day, given the abundant consumption of goose meat in Germany.

The Spreewald. -- Very pretty with their caps with long protrusions, blooming like red and white flowers, the young Wendish girls go by boat to Sunday service.

Virchow Hospital with twenty-four pavilions is spread over an area of 27 hectares and can accommodate 2,000 patients; it holds a staff of 682 people; doctors, nurses, and employees.

Virchow Hospital. - In the large bright rooms, enlivened with plants and odorless flowers, beds of lacquered iron align with the irreproachable whiteness of their linen.

The Spreewald. - Exclusively devoted to vegetable growing, the Spreewald mostly feeds the Berlin market. Thus one sees every day moving through the channels a long string of boats loaded with vegetables moving towards the capital.