12 
Report on the Agriailturo of Belgium. 
property of the landlord. Very often each field has a narrow- 
strip of grass bordering the ditches, and these green lanes are 
frequently the only bits of pasture which the small farmer pos- 
sesses. In the early morning, and towards sundown until dusk, 
one may generally see a cow, led by a woman or a child, nibbling 
this bit of green almost blade by blade. Sometimes there are 
two or three cows tethered together, similarly attended, and rigo- 
rously restricted, not only to the grass, but to a particular portion 
of it, which has been assigned to them for their morning or even- 
ing meal. The smallness of the fields, with their straight sides ; 
the variety of crops grown, with their differences of colour ; and 
the numerous seams of grass and alder, give to the face of the 
country an appearance which reminded us more forcibly of a 
homely patchwork quilt than the luxurious Turkey-carpet with 
which it has been so frequently compared. 
There are degrees of littleness even amongst these very small 
farms ; there are farms worked entirely by cows, and there are 
others in which a horse is kept ; but a farm which supports a 
sufficient number of horses to do all the tillage and draught work 
would take us almost beyond the pale of la petite culture. We 
say almost, because in some cases a farmer can profitably employ 
more than one horse and some cows, while he has not sufficient 
land to induce him to keep two. In such cases he either hires a 
horse occasionally, or, being the possessor of two, he lets out one 
or both to neighbouring farmers who are deficient in horse- 
power. The most profitable size of a small farm is therefore 
considered to be that which will keep one horse constantly at 
work. This is estimated in various neighbourhoods at from 20 
to 25 acres. In the Pays de Waes this is the maximum size of 
the farms, while 10 acres is about the most usual size of a 
holding when the farmer does no work except for himself. 
But there are also other holdings of a lower grade, where neither 
horse nor cow is kept, and where the great object of the Flemish 
husbandman, viz. to obtain manure, is achieved by his keeping a 
pig or a few goats. Such plots are sometimes held by trades- 
men, and the tillage-operations performed by contract, at a fixed 
price, or rarely for a certain proportion of the produce. Still 
smaller are those holdings, ranging up to an acre in extent, 
where the spade is the only agricultural implement, and where 
the tillers of the soil are the agricultural labourer's wife and 
children. But such "morsels" cannot alone yield enough to sup- 
port the family, and must therefore be placed in a different class 
from true " farms." 
3. Implements. — The Flemish spade is usually from 16 to 18 
inches long in the blade, and about 8 or 9 inches wide at the 
bottom. It is always used for the root-crop (potatoes), for which 
