Report on the Agriculture of Belgium. 
immediately after reclamation may be placed at 30.s'. per acre, 
while the land was previously worthless for farming purposes. 
In this manner, especially in the Pays de Waes and the district 
reaching westward to the Polders, the land was originally brought 
into cultivation ; but in many parts of the Campine the soil is 
still a pure white blowing sand, and is still in its primitive 
barrenness. For thousands of acres together the country consists 
of a vast plain of heather, relieved only by patches of pine-forest. 
Comparing this picture with the artificial productiveness of the 
region between Antwerp and Bruges, it is almost impossible to 
believe that what we now see in the one province was, a century 
ago, equally characteristic of large portions of the other ; but 
what now prevails in Flanders — what has excited the admiration 
of agricultural travellers for the last half-century — is unquestion- 
ably the result of incessant labour combined with marvellous 
frugality. 
The reclamation of a sandy heath was not, however, the only, 
and perhaps not the chief, source of the reputation which the 
farming of Flanders has so long enjoyed. There was, in addition, 
this striking peculiarity — that the farms were exceptionally small, 
and that this once barren district produced the largest crops, and 
sustained, in apparent comfort and independence, the densest 
agricultural population in Europe. Forty years ago the concur- 
rent testimony of numerous writers pointed out the farming of 
Flanders as the most productive and the most advanced in Europe. 
But while, in the interval, English agriculture has made enorm- 
ous strides, the farming of Flanders has remained stationary ; and 
it is now as accurately described in the old books as it was in the 
last generation, in the days when they were written. 
Rents in Belgium are generally high; in some parts of 
Flanders they are remarkably so, considering the quality of the 
land ; but this consideration, although it would have weight in 
determining the relative value of two farms in one parish or 
district, furnishes absolutely no test of the value of a farm in the 
Campine, for instance, as compared with that of one in the Pays 
de Waes. In such cases we must judge by the law of supply 
and demand. The Pays de Waes may be termed the metropolis 
of la petite culture ; and there, therefore, the competition for 
land is most keen ; there also, singularly enough, is one of the 
worst systems of land-tenure in the world. Near Termonde, 
where a farm of 20 acres is accounted large, the light sandy land 
of this division of Belgium easily lets at from 48*. to 60s. per 
acre.* In the Campine, however, where the soil is similar, but 
* The meadow land in this neighbourhood is much dearer, and will be described 
under its proper heading. Our statements of rents indicate the ranges which we 
ourselves observed. Government averages do not give a practically truthful idea> 
