440 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
r ably 31 188ft 
BELGIAN WORK AND WAYS—DIGGING. 
In a previous communication reference was made to the circum¬ 
stance of far more workers being visible on the land in Belgium than in 
England. It is quite within the limits of the strictest aceuracy to say 
not that ten, but certainly more than twenty times the numlier of persons 
were seen working in fields between Antwerp and Ghent, on about 
forty-three miles, than between London and Harwich, which is, perhaps, 
half as far again. There are two lines of railway between the two 
Flemish cities—namely, the Pays de Wars route, before alluded to as 
starting from the Scheldt, opposite the landing place from the steamer, 
this being a private or “company ” line ; and the State railway, start¬ 
ing from the opposite side of the city, the station de I’Est, which is 
about a mile from the quay. This is a comparatively new and direct 
route, formerly travellers having to go via Malines and change there or 
somewhere else ; but by what may be called the Boom route there is no 
change, and the second class fare is about 3s. 6d. 
I had read that the old Pays de Waes line traversed the district of 
small holdings, where spade culture was supreme and every inch of land 
made to yield a reward for honest labour. No doubt the majority of 
the holdings are very small, plots of a few acres only, and tillers of the 
ground very numerous ; but having travelled by one line to Ghent, and 
by the other back again, and forming an opinion from the not too 
quickly moving train, I thought the busiest scene and the best work 
was in the district through which the State line runs. A few years ago 
I passed through a district of “ small culture ” a little further south, 
between Brussels and Waterloo, and was gi’eatly disappointed. The 
land was light, very sandy, and not by any means well worked. 
Potatoes were being taken up, miserably poor crops, women appearing 
to do nearly all the work, while vacant land was being scratched over 
with an apology for a plough, and horse to match, while the human 
workers showed to great disadvantage with English peasantry as a rule. 
I think possibly I saw “ small culture ” in its worst aspect there, and 
now I am inclined to surmise I have witnessed it in its best form, and 
at another period of the year—planting instead of reaping time, or the 
Potato setting period—and this might account for the number of 
persons employed, as for miles they appeared to be almost as thick as 
gleaners in an English Wheat field in the autumn. 
I suppose any person who has gone through the mill of gardening in 
every phase, and who has learned to use the spade as deftly as the 
pruning knife or pen, knows in a moment as soon as he sees a man 
“ handle” an implement whether he understands it or not. It is pain¬ 
ful to see young men who have been brought up in the houses all their 
time, and become expert potters, plant trainers and table decorators, 
and whom fortune has not favoured with a continuation of such “ light 
employment ”—it is painful, I say, for an old hand to see their ungain- 
liness when necessity compels them, as is often the case, to use the spade 
and other garden tools, which they may have thought were only fit for 
labourers. The work in such case is truly hard, whereas it would have 
been comparatively easy had they learned in the school of practice the 
right way of doing it. This every young gardener should do, and never 
rest contented till he can do every kind of work in a garden as well as 
an expert labourer can do it, and a little better if possible. He will 
then be provided for emergencies, and if he has never to dig or trench, 
and do ordinary outdoor work, the men under him who do it will re¬ 
spect him the more, and readily bow to his authority when they 
see, as they are quick to do, there is someone over them who “ knows 
his business.” This is a digression, but not, after all, very foreign to the 
subject, even if that subject be digging in a foreign land, for if a lesson 
useful in its tendency cannot be derived from a narration, or a sugges¬ 
tion thrown out by the way that may be of possible service, it is small 
use narrating. 
And now to the Belgian diggers. The first thing that strikes a stranger 
is to see women using the spade as well as men, not merely pottering 
about with it, as is the case in this country when they venture to “help 
in the garden,” but doing downright good work, and doing it as well, 
and as much of it, also apparently as easily, as the masculine workers. 
The implements, as they were driven boldly in the land and withdrawn! 
with a clean turn over, glittered in the sunshine—clear evidence that 
their value was known, and that pride was taken in the digging. It is 
conceivable that there are kid-gloved dandies who cannot see what 
there is to be proud over in spades and spade work. Well, so much the 
worse for them if they hope to become gardeners. A gardener who 
cannot dig—and there are hundreds of probationers who appear to have 
no great desire to learn—is ignorant in the very elements of his calling. 
I have never seen a man who did not cherish his tools and keep them 
bright and clean who was a good workman. Digging can no more be 
well done with a rusty spade than pruning can with a dull knife. 
The Belgian diggers keep their spades bright and do the work the 
better and the more easily on that account. There are “ lucky men” 
in the gardening world no doubt, men who have had friends to help 
them onwards, and it may be hoist them upwards, but no one should 
rely on patronage, which is a lottery of one prize to a thousand 
blanks. The safe course for a man to pursue is to strive for excellence 
in every kind of work, and never to rest contented so long as he sees a 
fellow worker surpass him. If he is earnest in that respect he will not 
only train his hand and his eye, but strengthen his brain, and beeome a 
good deal more than a mere delver—an intelligent worker. I have been 
reading with pleasure some articles in the Journal of late by Messrs. 
Dunkin and Coombe on artificial manures, and I dare venture to say 
That the writers of those articles are real workers. Their perseverance 
in searching for knowledge, their watchfulness for the results of practice',, 
and the absence of “ showiness ” in formulating their opinions, indicate 
to me at least that they are not mere surface scratchers ; but when they 
dig do it with a will and keep their spades bright. If I had a good 
garden, and wanted a good gardener to manage it, I dare engage either 
of those men ; but I do not, as my man can dig as well as a Belgian, 
peasant, and he does not do his work the less well for knowing that 1 can 
“ take a turn” without knowing it. The lesson I wish to impress on all 
young aspirants to fame in the world of gardening—a world of labour 
and delight, is to be earnest, to think of no kind of work as worth no¬ 
thought and care ; but if digging is to be done take a pride in it and do¬ 
it well, and if anyone thinks the worse of them for that, depend on it 
his acquaintance is not worth cultivating, and he may be regarded a.s- 
either a drone or a snob. Every man in the gardening ranks who ha^ 
achieved a good position solely by his owm endeavours was, so far as I 
know, an industrious worker in his earlier days, and did not allow 
anyone to excel him in whatever was in hand. His spadework was- 
as well finished as his table decorations, and as the plans he so 
carefully drew to scale for landscape work and buildings. Am I 
forgetting the Belgian diggers? No ; only wandering from them for 
a few moments, but not from the subject, and now return for a few 
more moments to the men, women, children, dogs, and water barrows in 
the fields. 
Water barrows in April, what can they be for ? We do not see- 
them dragged about on the land at home at that season of the year.. 
They are for conveying liquid manure, sewage, slops, and refuse of 
every kind that can be collected for enj-iching the land. Nothing 
appears to be allowed to run to waste and to pollute watercourses ; ar(i 
it is observable the sewage is applied before the crops are growing. The 
wrong time, some may faney ; but if there were anything very wrong 
about it would it not have been found out long ago by the busy workers 
whose livelihood depends on what they put in the land, for obviously 
money must be placed in a bank before it is drawn out ? Such applica¬ 
tions do good at any time whenever the surface of the ground is dry 
enough to facilitate the transport of the fertilising medium, and it is: 
far better to apply it then than to let it accumulate and poison the air 
and be wasted at the same time. A sturdy dog harnessed to the barrel 
on wheels drags it along as if he enjoyed the work, the man behind 
giving a helping hand. Those who have no dog help place their barrels 
in a barrow and trundle them along. Women seem to be as apt at 
barrow work as men, and spread manure in the trenches, children 
dropping in Potatoes, and the more able-bodied dragging the earth over 
them with a heavy-looking hoe. It may be added that the sewage from-, 
the cities is carted away nightly in railway engine-like vessels, it being 
drawn into these through hose with pumps. It is a curious process, anil 
offensive enough in Ghent after midnight ; but in Antwerp the ap¬ 
pliances seem better, yet the same kind of nocturnal work goes on con¬ 
tinually. But we must return to the digging. 
In the district in question the workpeople were in trenches, about 
two spades wide, and appeared to be turning up the soil about the same 
depth—bastard trenching, perhaps, but when we particularly wanted the 
train to stop to enable a closer examination, it seemed to move the 
quicker. In the finish of beds good workmanship was particularly 
noticeable. Long stretches of them were passed here and there, but 
what was in them I know not. They were about 4 feet wide, as 
level as a floor, and not only were the edges lined off without kink 
or flaw, but the line appeared to have been set back about 4 inches, 
and that portion smoothed—a sort of beading being formed in the line 
course. The neatness was very remarkable, and although the crops would 
neither be better nor worse for the fancy indulged in, it clearly showed 
the difference between careful and slovenly work. It reminded 
of the exactitude of the rows of upspringing corn in the best agricul¬ 
tural districts of England, where prizes are given to drillmen for the 
excellence of their work. Practically no more time, and often not a 
minute more, is occupied in doing work well, and in such a way that 
the eye rests on with pleasure, than doing it in a slipshod and un¬ 
workmanlike manner that gives no satisfaetion. The best workmen I 
have met were usually the quickest, or at Last could get through as 
much as the “ rough hands ;” and the rule holds good both in the 
workshop and the garden. As regards work with the pen, perhaps I 
had better “ sing small,” because some of my friends tell me they 
cannot read my writing ; but the printers can, which seems to suggest 
that there is something to be learned by those readers who confess their 
failure. 
We will now for a time link the spade with the plough. In the well 
tilled Belgian campagne through which we are passing some of the 
holdings comprise ten or twenty acres I was told, and it is the custom 
to turn a third or fourth of the land up deeply with the spade every 
year, the remainder being worked with the plough. This means that 
the whole is either very deeply dug or trenched every three or four 
years. There can be no question in my mind as to the value of this 
practice in two important respects—namely, in providing employment 
for men, and in enhancing the value of crops, thereby making the labour 
remunerative; and with otherwise good management the work w 
remunerative, but it is, or ought to be, clear to all cultivators that it is 
wealth wasted to improve the ground by labour or enrich it with 
manure if its virtues are abstracted by weeds. Thousands of acres of 
land in Britain have been rendered unprofitable through nothing else 
but growing weeds, and if all soil of good staple, so neglected, were well 
worked, fortified, and kept clean, the produce would be doubled, and 
landlords, tenants, and labourers benefited. If anyone should be 
