434 APPENDIX. 



vision of a great European war going to break out) 

 the exports from this country, apart from their usual 

 periodical fluctuations, continued to remain what they 

 were, in proportion to the increasing population, and 

 many of them became less profitable ; while the 

 exports from all other countries increased in a much 

 greater proportion. 



K.MARKET-GAKDENING IN BELGIUM. 



In 1885 the superficies given to market gardening in 

 Belgium was 99,600 acres. In 1894 a Belgian professor 

 of agriculture, who has kindly supplied me with notes 

 on this subject, wrote : 



" The area has considerably increased, and I believe 

 it can be taken at 112,000 acres (45,000 hectares), if not 

 more." And further on : " Rents in the neighbour- 

 hood of the big towns, Antwerp, Liege, Ghent, and 

 Brussels, attain as much as 5, 16s. and 8 per acre ; 

 the cost of instalment is from 13 to 25 per acre ; 

 the yearly cost of manure, which is the chief expense, 

 attains from 8 to 16 per acre the first year, and then 

 from 5 to 8 every year." The gardens are of the 

 average size of two and a half acres, and in each 

 garden from 200 to 400 frames are used. About the 

 Belgian market-gardeners the same remark must 

 be made as has been made concerning the French 

 mar dickers. They work awfully hard, having to pay 

 extravagant rents, and to lay money aside, with the 

 hope of some day being able to buy a piece of land, 

 and to get rid of the blood-sucker who absorbs so 

 much of their money returns ; having moreover every 

 year to buy more and more frames in order to obtain 

 their produce earlier and earlier, so as to fetch 



