THE LAND SYSTEM OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 463 



would otherwise have to procure from some remote quarter. It 

 is owing to the prizy that the outgoing farmer does not neglect 

 the land even in the last year of his tenure, and the incoming 

 tenant finds it in perfect condition, instead of its being exhausted 

 and overgrown with weeds. No outlay is less regretted by the 

 Flemish farmer than the one for the inventory. His saying is, 

 Hoe hooger hoe beter, " the higher the better." ^ 



In Flanders all agricultural authorities agree that the Pachters- 

 regt is indispensable to good culture. They go so far as to de- 

 mand, in the interest of rural economy, that the local customs 

 relative to this right be systematised and regulated by law. In 

 fact, the land in Flanders is naturally so excessively poor that if 

 the outgoing tenant neglects it during the last two years of his 

 occupation, the farm is ruined, and a great expenditure becomes 

 necessary to put it into its proper condition again. 



The Flemish Pachters-regt deserves to be introduced every- 

 where for the following reasons : 



1. It is equitable, compensating, as it does, the farmer for his 

 improvements and good cultivation. 



2. It prevents the exhaustion of the land during the last two 

 or three years of the lease. 



3. It furnishes the incoming farmer with manure, which it 

 is his interest to have. Both the Flemish and the Chinese prop- 

 erly think that there is no better investment to be made than 

 in manure. 



Those who cultivate the soil are either landowners, tenants, or 

 labourers. Let us now examine the condition of each of these 

 three classes in Flanders. 



If the cultivator of the land is the owner of it at the same time, 

 his condition is a happy one in Belgium, as everywhere else, 

 unless the plot he holds is insufficient to support him, in which 

 case he has to eke out his existence by becoming also a tenant or 

 labourer. But as a rule the peasant-proprietor is well off. In the 

 first place, he may consume the entire produce of his land, which 

 being very large, especially in Flanders, his essential wants are 



^ I need hardly add that nothing of all this applies to the Ulster tenant right 

 as described by Lord Dufferin on " Irish Tenure," p. 116. 



