4 
Report on the Agriculture of Belgmm. 
and summer rainfall affect the farming to a considerable extent, 
and tlie mean winter temperature and winter rainfall have a 
comparatively slight influence. 
The mean summer temperature of England is about 61° Fahr., 
tbat of Flanders is about 63^ Fahr. ; in winter these relations 
are reversed, being 39° in England and 37° in Flanders. The 
rainfall of Flanders is greater than that of England, being about 
30 inches per annum, one-fifth of which is summer rain ; but in 
the greater portion of England the quantity of summer rain is 
larger. The average number of rainy days in England is between 
150 and 160 per annum ; in Flanders, according to M. Houzeau, 
it rains, on the average, on 190 days in every year. One other 
fact in the climatology of Flanders is also favourable to the 
catch-crop system, viz. the greater amount of summer heat than 
we obtain in England. This condition, and the length of the 
solar day, combine to advance the ripening of the corn-crops, and 
thus leave the land vacant a little earlier. This fact is tolerably 
well known, but it may be useful here to state its cause. All 
seeds require, to enable them to ripen, a certain definite amount 
of heat in the concrete, as it were — such as might theoretically 
be produced, for instance, by burning so many pounds of coal. 
Therefore, the more intense the heat, or the longer the sun has 
power during the day, the sooner will the corn ripen. Again, in 
Flanders frost is rare in October, and equally rare after the 
middle of April. In England we generally get frost much 
earlier, and rarely part with it completely until after the third 
week in May. In Flanders it freezes on about 50 days in the 
year, in the soutb-east of England on about 70. These facts 
appear to show that in this division of Belgium a longer period 
of the year is what may be called " a growing time " than is 
the case in England. Add to this the possession of a very light 
soil, a warm and moist climate, and it will be easily under- 
stood how the growth of " catch crops " has become so prominent 
a feature of Flemish husbandry. 
2. The Loamy District of Central Belgium. — This region, 
coloured red on the map, is that of the Hesbayan loam, which 
is covered by a good deep soil of moderate strength, about 
comparable in most parishes to our best turnip and barley soils, 
but becoming lighter towards the sandy land of the district just 
described and heavier towards those which remain to be noticed. 
Speaking broadly, the land is of better quality in the central and 
eastern portions of the district than in the western. Its surface 
is pleasantly diversified in the west — where it is studded with 
isolated eminences (see map), the hills attaining a height of 
between 400 and 500 feet — and becomes simplified in the east, 
where it forms broad and flat undulations, which are a rolling 
