Rural Economy of the Netherlands. 149 



The population is 3,500,000, or a little more than 100 to 250 

 acres, while in Belgium it is 160, and in France onlj^ 68. Tlie 

 produce of the land suffices for its inhabitants, and even shows 

 a small surplus, for althoug^h food to the value of 2,400,000Z. is 

 imported every year, the value of the exports is 4,000,000/. Such 

 agricultural prosperity is the more remarkable because it is of 

 recent date. Holland formerly, like Venice, of all the states of 

 Europe owed the greatest portion of its wealth to commerce, and 

 the least to agriculture. The country was supported, not by the 

 plough tilling the bosom of the earth, but by her navy furrowing 

 the waves of every sea. Since the decline of her commercial 

 greatness (that is for more than a century) her attention has been 

 turned to agriculture, and little by little, unnoticed abroad, and 

 almost unobserved by the country itself, without noise, without 

 fuss, ' Holland, which once existed by trade only, has become 

 famous for agriculture. 



' The territory is divided into two portions, equal in extent, but 

 differing much in fertility ; the low, clayey districts of the sea- 

 coast, and the higher sandy district of the interior. 



The clay district, which is by far the most fertile, comprises 

 3,750,000 acres, after deduction has been made for land taken up 

 by roads, lakes, canals, towns, «S:c. It includes the provinces of 

 Zealand and North and South Holland, and extends over a 

 great portion of Friesland, Groningen, and Over-Yssel. The 

 perfectly level plain of the country proves that it was formed in 

 the depths of still water. In short, it owed its origin to three 

 rivers which had their mouths here, viz., the Scheldt, the Meuse, 

 and the Rhine. On entering the Low Countries the rivers have 

 hardly any fall, and when the fresh water meets the salt, the 

 current is entirely arrested, and the ooze settles in banks. These 

 low lands are protected by embankments and dykes, which were 

 begun in the earliest historical times. From the sixteenth cen- 

 tury a record has been kept of the works of this kind that have 

 been successively executed, and it appears that in 350 years, 

 875,000 acres of the richest land have been won from the 

 waters. 



This region is on the whole one of the richest in Europe. 

 M. de Laveleye estimates the average value of the land at 48/. 

 per acre. The country, of which about two-thirds are in grass, 

 has the appearance of an immense pasture. This is the home of 

 those famous cows which yield 900 to 1100 quarts of milk a 

 year. Nowhere is farming more simple in its details, and at 

 the same time more profitable. The province most famous for 

 its grass-land is North Holland, a low projecting peninsula, 

 which stretches northwards from Amsterdam, with the ocean 

 on the west, and the Zuydcr Zee on the east. It would long ago 



