148 THE OUTDOOR GARDEN 



from owners of large private estates ? It is not 

 by any means our distant Colonies alone that are 

 in need of rural workers. It is England herself 

 who requires workers on the land, not only to build 

 up riches but also to provide a race of hardy, active, 

 healthy fighting men. 



Perhaps the advent to our country of so many 

 Belgian refugees, filled with enthusiasm as they are 

 for intensive cultivation of the land, may bring 

 improvement. Some traces of them will un- 

 doubtedly remain after their sojourn with us and 

 in the same way that singing birds, glazed attics, 

 and anglicised names linger in Spitalfields to recall 

 the Walloons and French who flocked there in 

 1685, so too Belgian influence will in this and 

 coming years force improvements upon our country 

 people. 



Not long ago a letter passed through my hands 

 which was written by one who is in close touch 

 with our Board of Agriculture. The writer said, 

 " I have been thrown a good deal in contact with 

 some of the refugees who have come from districts 

 in Belgium where intensive production existed, 

 and also have met a good many of the experts 

 employed by the Belgian Department of Agricul- 

 ture. The information that these Belgians have 

 been able to give me has astonished me beyond 

 description. I have been informed that the Belgian 

 horticulturalists and small-holders can make a 

 very good living indeed on an acre of land, and 

 that they become rich on two or three acres, but 

 one and all stated that without organisation they 

 could not have accomplished what they have done." 



