CENTRAL BELGIUM AND FLANDERS.—For the sake of convenience the Tertiary and Quaternary soils of Central Belgium and Flanders may be considered together, although from the agricultural, if not from the industrial, point of view several distinct regions may be recognised.
The loam lands of Central Belgium constitute the most fertile part of the whole country. Wheat is the principal cereal crop, and the yield per acre is high ; sugar beet is also cultivated on an extensive scale, and flax is grown on the poorer soils. In Flanders the districts covered by sand have been greatly improved by the cultivators raising the underlying clay, which is at no great depth, and mixing it with the sand. In this and other ways a region, which would have been, if left to itself, as barren as the greater part of the Campine, has been rendered most productive. Rye and potatoes are the principal crops, but flax, tobacco, and colza are also cultivated. In the polders, barley is grown and large numbers of cattle are raised, while dairying is an important pursuit of the inhabitants.
The industrial activity of the whole of this region is of con siderable antiquity. In the Middle Ages the towns situated within it were able, largely on account of their central position on the plain of Northern Europe, to engage both in commerce and manu factures; and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they were noted especially for their production of woollen goods. As a result of various political and economic changes they fell for a time into a state of decadence, but have succeeded during the nineteenth century in regaining something of their old importance. The manufacture of linen is carried on chiefly at Ghent, Courtrai, and Tournai, all in or near the flax-growing districts, but the supply of home-grown flax is unable to meet the demands of the industry, and large quantities are imported from Russia. Much of the flax
which is grown in Belgium itself is retted at Courtrai, where the waters of the Lys are particularly adapted to giving the fibre a soft and silky appearance and great tenacity ; and large quantities of it are exported to the United Kingdom where it is much in demand. On the other hand, Belgium imports from Ireland a considerable amount of the finer kinds of yarn which the climatic conditions of the latter country enable it to produce. The cotton industry of Belgium, which in 1910 had over 1,300,000 spindles in operation, has its chief centres in Ghent, in Brabant especially in the district round Nivelles, and in Hainaut. The first of these is the most important, and contains over one-half of the factories and spindles in the country, and, though it is somewhat more remote from coal than the districts in the south, it is able to import its raw cotton more easily by means of the Terneuzen canal. Other textile pursuits include the manufacture of jute and hemp.
Other industries include shipbuilding at Antwerp, the pro duction of chemicals in the neighbourhood of the textile centres, and the manufacture of bricks, earthenware, and porcelain in the large towns with clay obtained partly from the valley of the Rupel, especially in the vicinity of Boom, and partly from abroad. At the ports a great variety of articles are made for which the raw material has to be imported.