The chief crops are corn (especially wheat), fruit, vegetables, potatoes, beet, tobacco, flax, linseed and hops.  The land is well cultivated, and the husbandry on the royal domains and the large estates especially so.  The pastures on the banks of the Elbe yield cattle of excellent quality.  The forests are well stocked with game, such as deer and wild boar, and the open country is well supplied with partridges.  The rivers yield abundant fish, salmon (in the Elbe), sturgeon and lampreys.  The country is rich in lignite, and salt works are abundant.  Of the manufactures of Anhalt, the chief are its sugar factories, distilleries, breweries and chemical works.  Commerce is brisk, especially in raw products—­corn, cattle, timber or wool.  Coal (lignite), guano, oil and bricks are also articles of export.  The trade of the country is furthered by its excellent roads, its navigable rivers and its railways (165 m.), which are worked in connexion with the Prussian system.  There is a chamber of commerce in Dessau.

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Constitution.—­The duchy, by virtue of a fundamental law, proclaimed on the 17th of September 1859 and subsequently modified by various decrees, is a constitutional monarchy.  The duke, who bears the title of “Highness,” wields the executive power while sharing the legislation with the estates.  The diet (Landtag) is composed of thirty-six members, of whom two are appointed by the duke, eight are representatives of landowners paying the highest taxes, two of the highest assessed members of the commercial and manufacturing classes, fourteen of the other electors of the towns and ten of the rural districts.  The representatives are chosen for six years by indirect vote and must have completed their twenty-fifth year.  The duke governs through a minister of state, who is the praeses of all the departments—­finance, home affairs, education, public worship and statistics.  The budget estimates for the financial year 1905-1906 placed the expenditure of the estate at L1,323,437.  The public debt amounted on the 30th of June 1904 to L226,300.  By convention with Prussia of 1867 the Anhalt troops form a contingent of the Prussian army.  Appeal from the lower courts of the duchy lies to the appeal court at Naumburg in Prussian Saxony.

History.—­During the 11th century the greater part of Anhalt was included in the duchy of Saxony, and in the 12th century it came under the rule of Albert the Bear, margrave of Brandenburg.  Albert was descended from Albert, count of Ballenstedt, whose son Esico (d. 1059 or 1060) appears to have been the first to bear the title of count of Anhalt.  Esico’s grandson, Otto the Rich, count of Ballenstedt, was the father of Albert the Bear, by whom Anhalt was united with the mark of Brandenburg.  When Albert died in 1170, his son Bernard, who received the title of duke of Saxony in 1180, became count of Anhalt.  Bernard died in 1212, and Anhalt, separated from Saxony, passed to his son Henry, who in 1218