234 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



intensive farming, and the land, before 

 the present great war descended upon the 

 country with its heel of iron, blossomed 

 with the milk and honey of plenty. Be- 

 ing contiguous to the North Sea fishing 

 grounds, it has always possessed a liberal 

 supply of fish, which is a staple article 

 of diet with the people. 



How thoroughly the Belgians do their 

 work is shown by their wheat yield. In 

 1913 they had a wheat crop covering ap- 

 proximately 400,000 acres, and the yield 

 was over 15,000,000 bushels, or upward 

 of '^'j bushels to the acre. When we re- 

 member that our own yield is only 15 

 bushels to the acre, the fine agricultural 

 development of Belgium will be appar- 

 ent. 



Again, Belgium grows 50 bushels of 

 barley to the acre where we grow 24; 

 312 bushels of potatoes to the acre where 

 we grow 90; and her other crops are in 

 proportion. 



LOW WAGES 



If living is cheap in Belgium, it is 

 no cheaper than conditions call for, be- 

 cause wages certainly are low. Alany 

 lace-makers, making the exquisite laces 

 that bear the Belgian mark, work from 

 the rising to the setting of the sun for 

 five dollars a week. It is said that the 

 average wage of all the breadwinners of 

 the country approximates only $165 a 

 year. The children work after they are 

 12, and all hands in a workingman's 

 family must keep busy in order that no 

 mouth shall go hungry. Even at this 

 it requires the utmost frugality to make 

 the buckle of income meet the tongue 

 of outgo. So must the Belgian house- 

 wife be an excellent manager. The Bel- 

 gian wage-earning classes eat but little 

 animal food, and most of that is fish. 



The day begins early for everybody 

 in Belgium, and particularly with the 

 wage-earners. More than half of Bel- 

 gium's population lives outside the towns, 

 and they are up and at their work before 

 the gray dawn is dispersed by the rising 

 sun, and on clear mornings the lights 

 of hundreds of cottages may be seen 

 vying with the stars as they twinkle 

 forth their message of households be- 

 stirring. 



EARI^Y TO RISE 



In the towns and cities the people are 

 downtown almost as early as their neigh- 

 bors across the English Channel are at 

 breakfast. They get their midday meal 

 around noon, and they go home for it, 

 since remarkably low tramway fares 

 make this possible. So it is that, instead 

 of a mug of milk and a sandwich at some 

 quick lunch, many a Belgian burgher 

 shuts up shop at 12, goes home to his 

 largest meal of the day, eats it leisurely, 

 and returns downtown by two. 



The Belgian government has always 

 felt a keen interest in the welfare of the 

 wage-earner and the man of small affairs, 

 and has made it possible for them to buy 

 homes on easy terms. The national 

 savings bank is empowered to make loans 

 to householders for buying or building 

 homes, and to insure their lives, so that 

 in the event of death the family will not 

 lose its equity in the place, and can use 

 the insurance to wipe off the debt. 



Taxes are made exceedingly low on 

 small property owned by those who 

 tenant it. In the country districts the 

 effort of the small farmer is not to place 

 a cottage where it is prettily located, but 

 rather to erect it where it will not take 

 up a single square foot of his workable 

 ground, if that be possible. 



A VAST MARKET GARDEN 



The entire western portion of the 

 country resembles one vast market gar- 

 den. There are no fences marking the 

 boundaries of the many small tracts, but 

 rather little trenches that separate one 

 farmer's place from the others. Tens 

 of thousands of acres of the roughest 

 kind of land have been converted into 

 splendid trucking gardens by western 

 Belgians. In 1839 there was a wild 

 stretch of land west of the Scheldt River 

 called the Pays de Waes, uncultivated 

 and uninhabited. Today it is one of the 

 most fertile sections of this remarkable 

 country, supporting 500 people to the 

 square mile, with truck farming as its 

 principal industry. 



As said before, the women of Belgium 

 are noted for their homely virtues and 

 their spirit of helping to keep the family 



