<P> The emancipation of the serfs came in 1770 - 1830, beginning with then Danish Schleswig in 1780 . Prussia abolished serfdom with the October Edict of 1807, which upgraded the personal legal status of the peasantry and gave them the chance to purchase for cash part of the lands they were working . They could also sell the land they already owned . The edict applied to all peasants whose holdings were above a certain size, and included both Crown lands and noble estates . The peasants were freed from the obligation of personal services to the lord and annual dues . A bank was set up so that landowner could borrow government money to buy land from peasants (the peasants were not allowed to use it to borrow money to buy land until 1850). The result was that the large landowners obtained larger estates, and many peasant became landless tenants, or moved to the cities or to America . The other German states imitated Prussia after 1815 . In sharp contrast to the violence that characterized land reform in the French Revolution, Germany handled it peacefully . In Schleswig the peasants, who had been influenced by the Enlightenment, played an active role; elsewhere they were largely passive . Indeed, for most peasants, customs and traditions continued largely unchanged, including the old habits of deference to the nobles whose legal authority remained quite strong over the villagers . Although the peasants were no longer tied to the same land like serfs had been, the old paternalistic relationship in East Prussia lasted into the 20th century . </P> <P> Before 1850 Germany lagged behind the leaders in industrial development, Britain, France and Belgium . However, the country had considerable assets: a highly skilled labor force, a good educational system, a strong work ethic, good standards of living and a sound protectionist strategy based on the Zollverein . By midcentury, the German states were catching up, and by 1900 Germany was a world leader in industrialization, along with Britain and the United States . In 1800, Germany's social structure was poorly suited to any kind of social or industrial development . Domination by modernizing France during the era of the French Revolution (1790s to 1815) produced important institutional reforms, including the abolition of feudal restrictions on the sale of large landed estates, the reduction of the power of the guilds in the cities, and the introduction of a new, more efficient commercial law . Nevertheless, traditionalism remained strong in most of Germany . Until midcentury, the guilds, the landed aristocracy, the churches, and the government bureaucracies had so many rules and restrictions that entrepreneurship was held in low esteem, and given little opportunity to develop . </P> <P> From the 1830s and 1840s, Prussia, Saxony, and other states reorganized agriculture, introducing sugar beets, turnips, and potatoes, yielding a higher level of food production that enabled a surplus rural population to move to industrial areas . The beginning of the industrial revolution in Germany came in the textile industry, and was facilitated by eliminating tariff barriers through the Zollverein, starting in 1834 . The takeoff stage of economic development came with the railroad revolution in the 1840s, which opened up new markets for local products, created a pool of middle managers, increased the demand for engineers, architects and skilled machinists, and stimulated investments in coal and iron . The political decisions about the economy of Prussia (and after 1871, all of Germany) were largely controlled by a coalition of "rye and iron", that is the Junker landowners of the east and the heavy industry of the west . </P> <P> The north German states were for the most part richer in natural resources than the southern states . They had vast agricultural tracts from Schleswig - Holstein in the west through Prussia in the east . They also had coal and iron in the Ruhr Valley . Through the practice of primogeniture, widely followed in northern Germany, large estates and fortunes grew . So did close relations between the owners and local as well as national governments . </P>

When did the industrial revolution start in germany