84 TPTE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



which is largely developed in Denmark, is one of the chief 

 reasons for the high condition of the arable land and the 

 increase in the cereal yields. For this crop is an admir- 

 able preparation for the subsequent corn crop. But 

 since 191 5, owing to the increased cost of labour, Danish 

 farmers are giving up sugar beet to a great extent. 



It is sometimes argued that it is because Denmark is 

 a small country that it has been possible to do all this ; 

 this, however, does not appeal to me as sound argument. 

 Our eastern counties are comparable in size, and superior 

 in soil and climate, to Denmark ; and there is no reason 

 why there should not be a similar agricultural develop- 

 ment, at all events in these counties. 



BELGIUM 



In this country the average size of the farms is so 

 much smaller than it is with us that it does not aiford 

 at all so useful a comparison as Detmiark ; also the 

 cultivation, which is much more intensive than in the 

 latter country, reaches a degree of intensiveness to 

 which we can never aspire. Indeed, I do not consider 

 that it would be desirable for us. The holdings are in 

 many cases so small that the amount of work that the 

 cultivator is forced to put into them, to extract a living 

 at all, is more than one would wish to see our tillers of 

 the soil called upon to perform. Yet they not only make 

 a living but succeed in putting by large sums annually, 

 as is shown by the large deposits in the Belgian agricul- 

 tural bank ; also one cannot fail to be impressed by the 

 zest of life of the Belgian smallholders. The study of Bel- 

 gium teaches us two interesting and valuable lessons ; 

 the first that a country, in which urban industrialism 

 has reached the highest degree of intcnsity^ — for the 



