Dairy-Farmwg in the Netherlands. 
523 
will be presently described. In June this cheese was being sold 
wholesale at about 30s. per cwt. 
There is little or no arable land on the farms, which are 
chiefly occupied by their owners. When let to tenants the rent 
ranges from 3 guineas to 4/. per acre for the rich pasture-land 
of which they consist. As a rule, about one-third of the grass 
is manured annually and mown, but some farmers haye land 
which they prefer to mow continually, and other pieces which 
they like to graze always. Cast cows are always fattened on the 
farm, either on grass in the summer, or on distillery refuse at 
any time of the year, but chiefly in the winter. The number of 
milch-cows kept by a farmer, who buys little or no distillery 
refuse or other artificial food — except such adjuncts to the hay 
for winter feeding as linseed-meal, linseed-cake, &c. — is one 
head to two imperial acres, but all the cah es are sold when they 
are a few days old. Those farmers, however, who buy large 
quantities of distillery wash can multiply their feeding opera- 
tions very much. One of the most " intensive " men I visited 
owned 22i acres of land, and rented 10 acres more. He had 
30 milking-cows in the fields and 10 feeding-beasts in the stalls. 
He stated that he fed every year about 30 beasts, besides his 
own cast cows, and spent about 670?. per annum in distillery 
refuse, beans, and linseed-meal — the last two materials being 
exclusively for cows in winter. This is one of the districts where 
distillery refuse (spoolen) is chiefly given to milking-cows on 
the grass. 
On an averasfe the farms in this district ransfe from 50 to 
75 acres in extent, rarely exceeding and not often falling below 
those limits. Day labourers are seldom met with, but yearly 
labourers who sleep and feed in the farmhouse, and who receive 
from 8 to 12 guineas per annum as wages, are the rule. Most 
of the work, however, is done by the farmer and his family. In 
the course of a long day's inspection of farms in this district, I 
called at one just at the dinner-hour, and being invited to enter, 
notwithstanding the awkwardness of the time, I carefully ob- 
served what went on. I counted nine pairs of sabots outside the 
door ot the living-room (the sabots are always left outside the 
door of the room or the house, as the case may be). These 
belonged to the farmer, his wife, five children (three being 
grown-up sons), a servant girl, and a cowman. Deducting one 
little girl, who was too young to do any work, this was the staff 
of the farm. They all sat round a table, each person having a 
plate with a portion of pork on it. The meat soon disappeared, 
and the company then addressed themselves to an enormous dish 
in the centre of the table, which was piled up with potatoes, 
and was crowned by a basin containing some kind of sauce, 
