800 
The Butch AgncuUural Colonies. 
first of the thi'ee was founded in 1884, and they are now at- 
tended by about 40 lads. For the families of colonists the 
teaching at these schools is wholly gratuitous, but strangers are 
also admitted, and pay for their instruction and lodging 
24L per annum. 
The population of the colonies numbers about 1,800 persons, 
consisting of 90 families of labourers, 220 free farmers, and 120 
children and orphans boarding with the different families. 
There are two Protestant churches and one Roman Catholic 
church on the estate, and the pastors of each are suitably pro- 
vided for. The medical service is under the charge of a doctor 
livingat Frederiksoord. No public-house is allowed, and drunken- 
ness is severely punished. A weekly court of justice is held, 
presided over by the Director, assisted by the two sub-directora. 
The punishments range from simple fines to confinement in 
cells and expulsion, and the offences for which these may be 
imposed are insubordination, disorderly conduct, drunkenness, 
absence without leave, immorality, extravagance, and laziness. 
In general, however, the conduct of the colonists is excellent. 
The estates comprise about 5,000 acres of sandy and gravelly 
soil, formerly covered with peat, which has long since been re- 
moved ; and what was formerly beneath it is now left as the sur- 
face soil mixed with vegetable matter. Of the total area, 
1,250 acres are taken up by six large farms managed by the 
Society itself with the work of the labourers ; 1,500 consist of 
woods, and more than 1,500 are cultivated by the free farmers 
and the labourers, the remainder consisting of roads, canals, 
heath, and open spaces. 
The cultivation of the land is of course adapted to the nature 
of the sandy soil, but the processes are all primitive, as the 
object is to find employment for a large number of people rather 
than to economise labour by the use of machinery. The ordinary 
course of cropping is (1) rye, (2) oats, (3) buckwheat, (4) 
potatoes, but not always in this sequence. After the rye is 
harvested, stubble turnips and spurrey are taken on portions of 
the land the same year, and ordinarily a part of the 'potato 
course is sown with white turnips, and more extensively with 
kohl-rabi. Only about one-tenth of the corn-breaks is sown 
with clover and rye grass, as clover only succeeds well when 
sown once in every eight or ten years. On the highest land 
broom is sometimes sown in the rye and allowed to grow the 
next year, thus displacing a crop of oats ; in the autumn it 
is ploughed in green as manure, and is followed the next year 
by potatoes. Of late years gi'eater attention than before has 
been paid to the cultivation of root crops, such as turnips, kohl- 
