OF AGRICULTURE. 213 



tables. As to the total exports of fresh flowers, 

 plants and shrubs, various fruit and vegetables 

 (including 555,275 worth of potatoes), they 

 reached 1,115,650 in 1910. 



All this is obtained from an island whose 

 total area, rocks and barren hill-tops included, 

 is only 16,000 acres, of which only 9,884 acres 

 are under culture, and 5,189 acres are given to 

 green crops and meadows. An island, more- 

 over, on which 1,480 horses, 7,260 head of cattle 

 and 900 sheep find their existence. How many 

 men's food is, then, grown on these 10,000 

 acres ? 



Belgium has also made, within the last few 

 years, an immense progress in the same direc- 

 tion. While no more than 250 acres, all taken, 

 were covered with glass some thirty years ago, 

 more than 800 acres are under glass by this 

 time.* In the village of Hoeilaert, which is 

 perched upon a stony hill, nearly 200 acres are 

 under glass, given up to grape-growing. One 

 single establishment, Baltet remarks, has 200 

 greenhouses and consumes 1,500 tons of coal for 

 the vineries. t " Cheap coal cheap grapes," 



* I take these figures from the notes which a Belgian pro- 

 fessor of agriculture was kind enough to send me. The green- 

 houses in Belgium are mostly with iron frames 



f A friend, who has studied practical horticulture in the 

 Channel Islands, writes me of the vineries about Brussels : " You 

 have no idea to what an extent it is done there. Bashford is 

 nothing against it." 



