THE LAND SYSTEM OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 449 



6. Abundance of food for cattle. Although the soil is not 

 favourable to permanent meadows, yet, taking the second crops 

 into account, one-half of the available superficies is devoted to 

 the keeping of live stock. Hence the rise of rents, although the 

 price of corn has hardly increased. 



7. House feeding of the cattle, by which the cows give both 

 more milk and more manure. 



8. Minute weeding. 1 



Many of these agricultural practices are possibly only where 

 there is a large agricultural population ; for which, on the other 

 hand, work* is found at the same time by these very practices. 



The following table shows the amount of labour employed in 

 the cultivation of the soil in Belgium : 



1 See my " Economie rurale de la Belgique." The reader will pardon my refer- 

 ring him to a previous work of mine for particulars which need not be repeated 

 here. Even in the writings of the best foreign authors errors occur with regard 

 to Belgium. Thus Mr. Stuart Mill, in his " Principles of Political Economy," 

 quotes a passage from McCulloch in which Hainaut and the two Flanders are 

 alluded to as being circumstanced alike whereas, in fact, their conditions are 

 different in ever}' respect. 



2 Comprising the farmers themselves, the farm labourers, and labourers proper. 



3 Being the proportion of women of the three preceding classes to 100 men. 

 i " Holders " includes both freehold- and tenant-farmers. 



