108 THE POSSIBILITIES 



able for culture.* The land is so well cultivated 

 that the average crops for the years 18901899 

 (the very bad year of 1891 being left out of ac- 

 count) were from twenty-six and a half to twenty- 

 eight and a half bushels per acre for winter wheat, 

 and reached an average of thirty-three and a half 

 bushels in 1900-1904 ; over fifty-four bushels for 

 oats (thirty-five to forty-one and a half in Great 

 Britain), and from forty to forty-three and a half 

 bushels for winter barley (twenty-nine to thirty- 

 five in Great Britain) ; while on no less than 

 475,000 acres catch crops of swedes (3,345,000 

 tons), carrots (155,000 tons), and more than 

 500,000 of lucerne and other grasses were ob- 

 tained.f 



As to extraordinarily heavy crops, Mr. See- 



* Out of each 1000 acres of territory, 673 are cultivated, and 

 327 are left as uncultivable, and part of them are now used for 

 afforestation. Out of the 673 cultivated acres, 273 are given 

 to cereals, out of which 61 are under pure wheat, 114 under 

 meteil (a mixture of of wheat and J of rye) and pure rye, and 

 98 under other cereals; 18 to potatoes, 45 to roots and fodder, 

 and 281 to various industrial cultures (beet for sugar, olea- 

 ginous grains, etc.); 27 are under gardens, kitchen gardens 

 and parks, 177 under woods, and 57 are cultivated periodi- 

 cally. On the other hand, each 65 acres out of 1000 give 

 catch-crops of carrots, mangolds, etc. 



f Annuaire Statistique de la Belgique pour 1910, Bruxelles, 

 1911. In Mr. Seebohm Rowntree's admirable work, Land and 

 Labour : Lessons from Belgium, published 1910 (London, Mac- 

 millan), the reader will find all concerning Belgian agriculture 

 dealt with in detail on the basis of the author's personal scrupu- 

 lous inquiries on the spot, and all available statistical informa- 

 tion. 



