HORSES IN BELGIUM. 
173 
HORSES IN BELGIUM. 
The Luxembourg, inhabitant of the “ fanges,” 
resembles, in some of his habits and peculiari¬ 
ties, his northern compeers. His chief pursuit, 
after his small agricultural operations are dis¬ 
posed of, is the breeding of horses, and this he 
conducts on a very extensive scale. The little 
horses of the Ardennes are nearly as unique in 
their way as the Shetland ponies. The fre¬ 
quenters of Spa will remember how they have 
visited some of the most pretty and romantic spots 
in the neighborhood by the aid of these animals, 
which are renowned for their endurance, fru¬ 
gality, and longevity. Like their masters, they 
live, no one knows how, on the sparsest of diet, 
picked up at random from the scattered crumbs 
of Nature’s table; yet it is by no means uncom¬ 
mon to see specimens of these horses, which 
have passed through 30 years and move of the 
hardest labor, knocking about the world, little 
cared for, poorly fed, yet always sturdy and 
ready for work. They are much in request all 
over Belgium. In the districts of Herve and 
Verviers, where they are very much employed, 
it is the custom of the owners, after the poor 
animals have gone through a hard day’s work, 
to turn them adrift at night, with a bell attached 
by a small rope to the neck, to get their liveli¬ 
hood as well as they can. In the morning, the 
owner seeks about for his horse, each man 
knowing the sound of his own bell. The an¬ 
imal never strays very far away; he is soon 
caught, and then begins another day of labor, 
notwithstanding his master’s neglect of his 
commissariat necessities. For post, or for 
light cavalry horses, these little Ardennese 
beasts are invaluable. Luxembourg exports, 
yearly a large number to France, Germany, the 
Netherlands, &c. In the first eight months of 
the year 1850, there were no fewer than 9,500 
horses and colts exported from Belgium, of 
which the majority came from Luxembourg. 
The horses bred in the Cam pine—chiefly, how¬ 
ever, on the larger farms and in the villages— 
are a larger and taller race, more fitted for the 
harness or the saddle. They make good coach 
horses. In agriculture, the peasants generally 
employ cows or oxen. The production of 
horses is enormous in Belgium. The official 
statistics give nearly a million as the annual 
number in the nine provinces. Of these, 98,000 
are put down as the proportion of Luxembourg 
and 73,000 of Limbourg. Of late, the govern¬ 
ment have endeavored to spread in the different 
provinces a new and per se, a superior kind of 
horses. The official reports affirm that the ex¬ 
periment has been attended with the best re¬ 
sults ; but it still remains to be seen how far 
these new races will supersede those indigenous 
to the Campine and the Ardennese. In Belgium? 
it is not very difficult for a man to keep a horse. 
A hundred francs will buy a very respectable¬ 
looking little nag—not very ornamental, perhaps, 
but decidedly useful. The price, indeed, is so 
low, and the low-priced horses are so very gen¬ 
erally used, that those who formerly devoted 
themselves to the breeding of a better sort of 
horses are now giving up the attempt. Some 
excellent stallions have been purchased in Eng¬ 
land for that purpose, but, except for luxury, 
the experiment is not very generally kept up.— 
London Morning Chronicle. 
SIDE-HILL DITCHING AND LEVEL CULTIVATION. 
This is what is more needed throughout all 
the cotton-growing region than anything else 
which now suggests itself to us. It is idle to 
talk about using better tools, plowing deeper, or 
manuring lands in a country that has so little 
real estate; for certainly that cannot be called 
real which is liable to run off into the Gulf of 
Mexico or Atlantic Ocean, in the first heavy 
shower after it is plowed. Yet this is the con¬ 
dition of much of the land upon which cotton 
grows. As it must be kept clean by cultiva¬ 
tion, and is continued in cultivation as long as 
it will produce, is it any wonder that a very 
light soil plowed up and down hill for years, 
with a plow that merely scratches the surface, 
should so soon ruin land; and consequently ex¬ 
hibit such broad wastes of old fields covered 
with gulleys, pines, and broom straw, which we 
see in every district that has been cleared of 
forest a dozen years, and often much less, serves 
to produce the sad effect ? 
The remedy for this is entirely easy, if com¬ 
menced with the first cultivation of the land; 
and even after much of the mischief has been 
done, it will prove very efficacious. Shall we 
give the process generally approved by planters 
who have tried the system most extensively ? 
However undulating may be the surface of 
your field, let all the rows be laid off’perfectly 
level. To do this, first establish one row upon 
any given point of the field by the levelling in¬ 
strument, and then make four to six more upon 
each side as near parallel to that as can be done 
by the eye of the best plowman, who must be 
set to work off for the other to bed up upon. 
Now, from the outside row measure off for four 
or six more rows, and then establish a second 
level by the instrument. In this way, go over 
