anxiety is probably justified by the slight additional severity of the Flemish winter; and spring sowing is most in vogue on the large farms in the Ardennes, where the climate is too severe for any crop but spelt to resist the cold of winter and early spring. The catch-crop grown in the wheat is sown either at the same time as the corn, or in February, according to the fancy of the farmer; but in the last named month the seed must be sown; rain, hail, or even feet of snow will not prevent it, and the roots are said to flourish quite as well when the seed is sown under unpropitious meteorologic influences, as when it is got in during the finest weather. It may be as well to mention here that on the small Flemish farms everything is sown broadcast; only the most advanced proprietors possess a drill, while the majority of ordinary farmers are as ignorant of the implement as their language is oblivious of its name. This fact necessarily influences the after treatment of wheat and other crops; for instance, horse-hoes are all but unknown, and even hand-hoeing, as we understand it, is never practised. Weeding is done by troops of women, who crawl about the fields on their hands and knees, pulling up weeds and singling the useful plants. Topdressings are also unknown. Harvesting is done in various ways: if carrots have been sown in the wheat or rye, the straw is pulled up by the roots, otherwise it is cut with either a scythe or hook. The yield of wheat obtained by the best small farmers in the Pays de Waes in a good year, such as 1868, is about 30 bushels per acre; but the ordinary "petit cultivateur gets very much less. In 1868 the average yield of the wheat crop in the kingdom of Belgium was 24 bushels per acre; but the average of the Province of Hainault (a large farm district) was in the same year as much as 27 bushels per acre. These figures must not, however, be taken to represent what we should term "dressed corn," but the total yield previous to the very imperfect dressing which the grain receives. The quality is also very poor, the colour is high, smut and bunt are very prevalent,* and the weight rarely much exceeds 60 lbs. the Imperial bushel.

The wheat having been pulled up, the carrots remain, and, favoured by a climate remarkable for warm and prolonged autumns, they grow rapidly. They remain in the ground until frosts commence, when they are pulled, and stored indoors for winter use, both men and beasts being largely fed on them. A good crop of carrots in wheat will weigh about 8 tons per acre, but in flax they yield a larger crop. Where many carrots are grown, a few draft cows are fed off, as these roots are found more productive of fat than milk. They are used largely for pigs,

*The use of sulphate of copper, or other preparation for dressing wheat, is all but unknown in Belgium,

and, to a small extent, for horses; too large a quantity given to horses produces colic, and although they fatten, they do not keep draught animals in good condition. Throughout Belgium we noticed that the grain crops were not harvested soon enough. They are allowed to get dead ripe, so that a large quantity of grain is necessarily shed. In the month of September, the fields present a remarkably green aspect, due entirely to the sprouting of shed corn, and it was with difficulty that we understood the ordinary custom of the country to be identified with so wasteful a practice. Wheat is very subject to be laid; on sandy land the farmers say it is owing to the dryness of the summer climate, on heavier land it is attributed to other causes; but the consequence is that its place, in the rotation is frequently supplied either by rye, which ripens before the dry season has fairly set in, or by a mixture of rye and wheat, in which the rye is supposed to hold up its weaker brother. We were inclined to attribute the liability of wheat to be laid to the excess of nitrogen and the deficiency of phosphates in the manures habitually used in Belgium, combined with the exhausting nature of the rotation of crops.

Rye followed by Turnips.-The preparation for rye is generally the same as for wheat; but we have seen the whole of the operations going on simultaneously in one field of two or three acres extent. The crop is harvested about the end of July, and yields about the same quantity per acre as wheat. The stubble is immediately ploughed to the depth of 6 or 7 inches, or hacked with a large hoe, and in a few days is harrowed and sown with turnips, which in good years will yield from 8 to 10 tons per acre. Of all modes of culture, that of turnips on the small Flemish farms seemed to us the most laborious. As soon as the seedlings appear, women are set to thin and weed them, and from this duty there is positively no respite until the roots get a tolerably large size; for owing to the practice of sowing broadcast, the plants must be weeded and thinned over and over again. there is any liquid manure to spare, this is the crop to which it is applied; and the rude contrivances for its distribution entail an enormous loss of time and labour. Some small farmers do certainly possess a barrel, which, when mounted on a cart, and fitted with a tap, forms a rough manure-distributor, requiring little manual labour but great attention. The very small holders, however, take the liquid manure into the fields in tubs on wheelbarrows, and they distribute it with considerable deftness, by means of a ladle-like shovel. Turnips and other fodder-roots are, as a rule in Belgium, grown too close together.

If

White Crop and Clover.-For this course the land receives a half-dressing of manure, and is ploughed for oats much deeper than for wheat or rye. Sometimes the seed is sown in

the winter; but otherwise, in the spring the land has a shallow ploughing, a harrowing, and a rolling. The clover (usually cow-grass) is either sown immediately after the corn, especially it both are sown in the winter, and the two harrowed in together, or the oats are harrowed in first, and the clover sown about a week or eight days afterwards. Oats are not generally harvested until late in August or the beginning of September; but owing to the warmth of the autumn it is frequently possible to get a cutting of clover two or three weeks after harvest, though this is not always done. In the following spring Dutch ashes or liquid manure is extensively applied to the clover crop, and generally a dressing is given the previous year soon after the white crop has shown above ground. It is especially necessary to notice this practice, as the luxuriance of clover in Flanders is one of the most remarkable facts we have to record. Some of the statements which we received respecting the yield of clover were so extraordinary that we cannot quote them; but a crop of 15 tons of green clover per acre yielded by three cuttings in one year, may be regarded as a moderate estimate. We shall, hereafter, have to refer more particularly to this subject, and to the causes of this luxuriance, therefore at present the bare record of the fact will be sufficient for our purpose.

crop are

Flax with Clover or Carrots.-Every small farmer grows a certain quantity of flax if his land is at all suitable for it, and great pains are taken to secure a fine tilth by winter and spring ploughings, as well as repeated harrowings and rollings. The flax seed (Riga) and the seed for the "simultaneous" sown together in March, if possible; an enormous quantity of the former being used, as, when grown thickly, the quality of the fibre is finer. About the end of June or the beginning of July the flax is harvested by being pulled up, and dried in small sheaves. From that time the carrots have the ground to themselves, so that they yield a much better crop (about 10 tons per acre) when sown with flax than with wheat, the harvest of which is so much later. Other particulars connected with this crop will be more advantageously recorded hereafter.

Buckwheat.-This crop is very much grown in some parts of the light-land districts, and it furnishes an agricultural topic on which differences of opinion are held to be allowable. The advantages of the crop are said to be that it needs no manure, that owing to its not requiring to be sown until late in the spring the land can be thoroughly cleaned previously, and that any weeds still remaining will certainly be choked by the rapid growth of the buckwheat. The opponents of its culture hold that although no manure is given for this crop, it completely exhausts the land of what it previously contained; that the produce per acre is not more than one-half what would be

yielded by wheat or rye, in money or grain, and that a good farmer ought not to require a course devoted to the purpose of killing weeds. As a rule, the land is ploughed in winter, and then left until spring, when it will receive about two more ploughings, harrowings, and rollings. The seed is sown late in the spring, after all danger from frosts has passed; and the crop is harvested in September, yielding about 16 bushels per acre on the average.

7. Stock.-Hitherto la petite culture has probably been even more celebrated amongst Englishmen for the number of head of cattle said to be kept on a given area, than for any other phase in its economy. We were told by an intelligent and well-read member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, that the small farmers keep a cow and one younger beast (either heifer, yearling, or calf) to every hectare (2 acres) of land. As this was nearly double the number of head of cattle we had found on any farm in Belgium, we were particularly desirous of ascertaining under what circumstances and by what treatment the land could be rendered capable of sustaining so large a number of stock. Ultimately we found that the establishment was attached to a workhouse, which contained 14 old men, 10 old women, and 6 children. The stock consisted of 4 cows, 1 working ox, 1 heifer, and 3 calves, and the extent of ground was 4 hectares, making exactly 2 beasts to 1 hectare. Now it was of great importance to produce milk and butter for the use of the establishment, as well as a surplus for sale; and whatever deficiency occurred in the supply of food yielded by the farm, either for man or beast, was bought with money supplied by the commune, or earned by the women and children in working flax (the old men did the field work). No rent and no wages were paid. Under these circumstances it seemed to us equally just to say that two head of cattle were kept on each hectare of land, as to say that the thirty human beings were also fed by the produce of the farm. We quote this little episode to show that statements made in good faith, by even well-informed men, must, in the absence of positive proof, be frequently received with some caution.

The usual number of stock kept on the light-land farms is in the proportion of 2 cows, 1 heifer, and 1 yearling or calf to every 4 hectares (10 acres) of ground. When calves are sold off very young, and only cows in full milk are kept, the proportion is about 2 cows to 3 hectares (7 acres). When a man is the proprietor of his farm, has a comparative abundance of capital to enable him to purchase food, &c., and is so situated that his milk and butter find a ready sale at good prices in the neighbouring towns, it pays him better to sell those products obtained by what amounts to an extension of his farm, than to keep the money thus employed lying idle until he can buy more land.

Again, where there is rich feeding land-irrigated meadow-land bordering a river-as is frequently the case (see p. 66), the proportion of cows kept becomes a little larger, on account of a custom which we shall presently mention. And under a combination of all these favourable circumstances a small farmer may even be bold enough to feed some of his own steers, and work them off as what he calls "fat" at 2 years old. No sheep are kept on the small farms proper; but in each commune there is generally at least one tenant-farmer or proprietor who finds himself called upon to fulfil the duty of keeping a small flock. The custom is that the sheep are allowed to run over everybody's stubbles, to feed in all the lanes, and in the winter even to trespass on other people's pastures; and in return their owner is obliged to keep one or more bulls to serve the cows belonging to any little farmer in the commune.

The custom relating to irrigated meadows, such as border the Escaut, is, that any person in certain communes has the right to turn his cattle into those fields during the months of September and October, that is, after the second hay-harvest. These meadows are very valuable, letting at from 80s. to 112s. per acre, so that the value of this privilege is considerable. Another point is, that the proprietors of these meadows have of late years found it more profitable to sell their hay by auction than to let the land; and the small farmers who can afford to keep many cows are keen competitors for the purchase of this fodder. Under such conditions we found one man who farmed 20 acres keeping 4 cows, 3 heifers and yearlings, and 5 steers to be fed off at 2 years old. This proportion is 1 per hectare, but it is impossible to ascertain what is the value of the hay purchased off the meadows close by, or of the common-right thereon during September and October. It is, however, only the most intelligent and thrifty men who have arrived at such a knowledge of the principles of their business; and not one small farmer in a hundred feeds off a single beast. Cows are kept until they are no longer profitable as milkers, or until they can be sold to the best advantage, or until money is wanted. They are then sold to large farmers, to beet-root sugar makers, or to distillers, in the districts of Brabant, Hainaut, Hesbaye, &c., and the usual process of beef-manufacture will therefore be more properly described as characteristic of la grande culture.

The cow-keeping of la petite culture may be truly described as arable land dairying, for the quantity of grass is generally not much more than sufficient for an exercise-ground, certainly not enough to have much influence on the system of feeding, or the method of farming. There are two systems of feeding milchcows-the warm-food system, and the cold-food system. The former is practised chiefly in the Campine, and to some extent in