Great Estates 



national health and physique would also improve 

 • — a much-to-be -desired event. 



When we consider that England imports nearly 

 .£3,000,000 worth of vegetables alone (not in- 

 cluding fruit) more than she exports, whilst Bel- 

 gium exports a quarter of a million pounds worth 

 more than she imports, something seems wrong. 

 Further, Belgium exports about half a million 

 pounds worth more fruit than she imports, not- 

 withstanding that her population is 589 to the 

 square mile, against our 342. When the cultivation 

 of the soil becomes so intensive that individual 

 care is given to every plant, it is no longer farming 

 or small holding, but market gardening, and this 

 is what the Belgians are fast doing. Gradually 

 their farmers allot a part of their soil to market 

 garden crops, then, finding them pay better than 

 ordinary farm produce, they little by little relin- 

 quish the former, and become full-fledged market 

 gardeners. 



A lecturer of the Horticultural College at Liege 

 gives some remarkable figures of the yield obtained 

 by him from his market garden at Liege. He got 

 two and sometimes three crops a year, ranging 

 from £62 per acre for cauliflowers and spinach, 

 up to ^175 for lettuce and celery. For such land, 

 up to £& per acre rent will be paid, and the value 

 will be perhaps ^200 per acre. The same thing is 



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