Page:Irish Emigration and The Tenure of Land in Ireland.djvu/196

Rh Let us now examine the agricultural system of Belgium, to which reference is often made. Fortunately, in the work of M. De Laveleye, we possess a text book on the subject of European celebrity.

According to popular belief Belgium is cultivated by a peasant proprietary twice as numerous in proportion to the area they occupy as the agricultural population of Ireland, living in peculiarly easy circumstances, and affording unmistakeable evidence of the advantages of la petite culture. The real facts are these:—That, making a proportionate deduction for the population employed on the pasture lands of both countries, the total population dependent on tillage in Ireland is probably almost as dense as that of Belgium. That the greater portion of Belgium is cultivated, not by small proprietors, but by tenants (and almost entirely so wherever la petite culture is carried to