THE LAND SYSTEM OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 439 



its productions. The cultivators, on the contrary, may constitute 

 a market for themselves. Let them produce plenty of corn, ani- 

 mals of various kinds, milk, butter, cheese, and vegetables, and 

 interchange their produce, and they will be well fed, to begin. 

 But furthermore, they will have the means of supporting a 

 number of artificers ; they may thus be well housed, furnished, 

 and clothed, without any external market. For this, however, they 

 must be proprietors of the soil they cultivate, and have all its 

 fruits for themselves. If they are but tenants who have a rent 

 to pay and no permanent interest in the soil, they certainly require 

 a market to make money. In a country whose cultivators are all 

 tenants, an external market for their produce is indispensable ; it 

 is not so in a country of freeholders : all the latter requires is that 

 agriculture should be carried on with the energy and intelligence 

 which the diffusion of property is sure to arouse in a people. 



The province of Groningen was the best-cultivated of Holland 

 before ever it exported any of its products to England, and yet 

 there are no large towns in it ; but, thanks to its peculiar system 

 of hereditary leases, the farmers could keep almost the entire 

 produce of their labour to themselves. 



Suppose that by the stroke of a magic wand the whole of the 

 tenant farmers of Flanders were to become possessed of the fee- 

 simple of their lands, what would be the result ? They would then 

 themselves consume the milk, butter, and meat which they are 

 now obliged to sell, and in consequence have to dispense with 

 animal food and to resort almost exclusively to vegetables for their 

 support ; then they would no longer have to send what they do to 

 an English market. Would they be the worse off for that ? 



Look at Switzerland. In proportion to her population, she has 

 more horned cattle than Flanders; i.e., 35 head to every 100 

 inhabitants, against 24 in Flanders. Yet while the latter exports 

 butter, oxen, rabbits, etc., to France and England, Switzerland 

 actually imports butter, cattle, corn, etc. The consequence is that 

 Switzerland consumes twice as much animal food as Flanders ; viz., 

 22 kilos of meat, 12 kilos of cheese, 5 of butter, and 182 of milk 

 per head per annum. Of the Swiss, indeed, we may say what 

 Caesar said of the ancient Britons Lacte et came vivunt. 



