Large and Small Holdings. 
19 
more meat than England, was pretty well disposed of by Mr. Jenkins in a 
paper read before the London Farmers' Club in 1872, and it was then shown, 
as the most recent trade statistics continue to sliow is still the case, that 
Belgium is far from being a self-supporting country. I find there was 
iictually a net increase of 91,000 cattle imported in 1880 ; and if there are to 
be found on Belgian acres 25 head of horned stock per hundred persons, and 
47 per 100 hectares of surface, these are very largely draught animals, and 
their weight much inferior to our own. Their sheep, always a small supply, 
have diminished from 586,000 to 365,000 concurrently with the growth of 
Belgian petite culture. The production of meat per acre in Belgium is 
estimated not to exceed 40 lbs. per head of the population, against a native 
2)roduction of 83 lbs. per head in this country. Practically, as the report 
submitted to our Royal Agricultural Society in 1870 * sliowed, the small 
farmer produces no meat but pork, and consumes none other himself. 
"Fifty years ago or more the agriculture of FlanHers was deemed the most 
productive and advanced in Europe; but while English agriculture has 
made enormous strides in the interval, that of Flanders has remained where it 
was. Belgium, like England, like Germany and France, is sufl'ering deeply 
from agricultural depression, and the small proprietors, hardest hit of all, are 
calling for protective duties." 
Italian agriculture is very varied ; large and small farms 
stand in close contiguity, and there are between 4 and 5 
million owners. Agricultural depression is extreme in Italy and 
taxation is very heavy, direct taxation alone taking about one- 
third of the produce. Small holdings of 2 or 3 acres, planted 
with vines, figs and olives, exist in Calabria, Ravenna and 
Ancona, but the return is often small, and these peasant owners 
sometimes want bread. In some parts the curious system 
prevails of ancient associations farming land under old charters, 
in one instance, 170 families in a group own 19,000 acres. 
In Sweden, according to Mr. James Howard's interesting 
little book on Continental farming,! the surface is pretty equally 
divided between large and small farmers. The smallest farm 
upon which a man can solely maintain himself, his wife and 
family, is 40 acres, with an outrun of 50 to 100 acres in rough 
pasture or forest. Half the farm labourers are women, while in 
Italy the " female agriculturists " are 55 to every 100 males. 
Small plots of ground are let to labourers who pay rent in - 
labour one or two working days a week, and extra work in 
l)arvest by women. A similar plan exists in other parts of 
Europe, where serfs continue to be bound to the soil, receiving 
land lor their labour services, and the " metayer " system is also 
common in some districts, the tenant paying rent with certain 
proportions of the produce of his farm. 
Mr. Jenkins reported more favourably on the agriculture of 
Denmark than that of any other country in Europe. That little 
* 'Journal,' K. A. S. E., 1870, vol. vi. p. 1 et seq. 
t ' Continental Farming and Peasantrv,' bv James Howard. 1870. 
c 2 
