LIVE STOCK. Stock-raising is extensively car ried on. and the animals and animal products not only supply the domestic demand. but fur nish an important article of export. The dairy industry is especially impo•tant—Belgian cheese, and particularly that of Limburg, having a world-wide reputation. The number of stock animals in Belgium is shown as follows: horses are mostly raised in Namur and Lux emburg, cattle in East Flanders, sheep in Luxem burg, and hogs in East Flanders. As will be seen from the above table. the number of horses Tuts remained stationary, and that of cattle nearly so, while the numher of sheep has greatly declined. On the other hand. there has been a vast increase in the number of hogs.
L.?xt; DISTII1IXTION. The concentration of land-ownership, the relative advantages and chances of survival of small and large farms and the possibilities in the way of application of capital in agriculture in connection with in tensive cultivation, have nowhere perhaps been studied with greater care than in Belgium. As the conditions In not differ much from those in the neighboring countries of Western Europe. the agrienItoral statistics of :Belgium are of more than ordinary value. The following table shows what was the land distribution at each of the censuses dnring the Nineteenth Century: 50.3 per cent; in 1880 the proportion increased again to 53 per cent., to fall in 1895 below one half of the total—viz. 49.4 per cent. The changes in agriculture which accompanied this concentra tion of land and increase of tenantry have been partly. as Mated above, a gradual abandonment of grain-growing (caused to a great extent by the competition of the cheaper American grain), and the substitution of the cultivation of indus trial plants, or of stock-raising, or of activities partaking more of the industrial than agricul tural eharaeler.
The forests of Belgium cover less than 15 per cent. of its area, and are mostly to be found in the south, especially in the provinces of Liege, Namor, and Luxemburg. They furnish but a small part of thy wood required for the Belgian industries. The fisheries furnish employment to a few thousand persons, and the value of the deep-sea fish caught annually is not far from $1.000.000.
Altxtxtt. The coal of Belgium constitutes one of the chief sources of its national prdsperity. The coal deposits extend nearly through the entire breadth of the country, from west to east. underlying about one-twentieth of its total area, chiefly along the valleys of the Meuse and the Sambre. The growth of the coal-mining indus try during the last half of the Nineteenth Cen tury is shown in the following table: The above table discloses the interesting phe nomenon that, while the small farms (those with an acreage of less than 121/2 acres each) had been increasing in number previous to 1880. and those with a larger acreage decreasing. the tend envy has been reversed in our times, and since ISSO the small farms have been giving place to the larger ones. (The word 'large' is applied to a farm in Belgium that would lie considered very small indeed in the 'United States; but in Belgium the intensive system of cultivation makes it possible to apply a comparatively large amount of capital to a small area.) Within the group of small farms the smallest, those of less than 11/4 acres in extent,, nmslly pat-dens or or chards attached to houses, have decreased only 3 per cent. since 1880, while those from 1 t j to 21/2 acres have decreased nearly 30 per cent., and from to 12l:, acres per cent. The largest increase took place in the two groups from 25 to 125 acres, viz.. S per cent. At the same time there has been an increase in the num ber of tenants cultivating land. In 1846 54.7 per cent. of the total area under farms was cultivated directly by their owners; in 1866 only Among the minerals found in Belgium are iron. lead, copper, zinc, calamine, alum, peat, marble, limestone, and slate. The value of the metallic products of the mines is not large, hav ing been less than 8500,000 in 1899, and having greatly declined since 1860. The abundance of cheap fuel has led to the establishment of an extensive metallurgical industry, the ores being imported.