56 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



92 (the very bad year of 1891 being left out of account) 

 were twenty-eight and six-tenths bushels per acre for 

 winter wheat ; nearly forty-seven bushels for oats 

 (thirty-five to forty-one and a half in Great Britain), 

 and forty bushels for winter barley (twenty-nine to 

 thirty-five in Great Britain) ; while on no less than 

 459,800 acres catch crops of swedes (2,226,250 tons) 

 and carrots (155,000 tons) were obtained. All taken, 

 they grow in Belgium more than 76,000,000 bushels of 

 cereals, i.e., fifteen and seven-tenths bushels per acre of 

 the cultivable area, while the corresponding figure for 

 Great Britain is only eight and a half bushels ; and they 

 keep almost twice as much cattle upon each cultivable 

 acre as is kept in Great Britain.* Large portions of the 

 land are given besides to the culture of industrial plants, 

 potatoes for spirit, beet for sugar, and so on. 



However, it must not be believed that the soil of 

 Belgium is more fertile than the soil of this country. 

 On the contrary, to use the words of Laveleye, " only 

 one half, or less, of the territory .offers natural condi- 

 tions which are favourable for agriculture " ; the other 

 half consists of a gravelly soil, or sands, " the natural 

 sterility of which could be overpowered only by heavy 

 manuring ". Man, not nature, has given to the Belgian 

 soil its present productivity. With this soil and labour, 

 Belgium succeeds in supplying nearly all the food of a 

 population which is denser than that of England and 

 Wales, and numbers 544 inhabitants to the square mile. 

 If the exports and imports of agricultural produce from 

 and into Belgium be taken into account, we can say that 



* Taking all horses, cattle and sheep in both countries, and reckoning 

 eight sheep as equivalent to one head of horned cattle, we find that 

 Belgium has twenty-three cattle units and horses upon each 100 acres of 

 territory, as against twenty same units and horses in Great Britain. If 

 we take cattle alone, the disproportion is much greater, as we find thirty- 

 six cattle units on each 100 acres of cultivable area, as against nineteen 

 in Great Britain. The annual value of animal produce in Belgium is 

 estimated by the Annuaire Statistique de la Belgique (1893, p. 263) at 

 ,58,039,050, including poultry (; 1,534,000). 



