A farmer who keeps two or three cows pays a rent of £8 a year for his farm, which only yields enough to keep him and his family, not in a high standard of living either. The rent is generally calculated at the rate of three per cent. of the value. He pays his farm-labourers 80 cents, or 1s. 4d., for a day's work. In former days, however, money was never given, and the wages of a farm-servant then were a suit of clothes, a pair of boots, and some linen, while the women received an apron, some linen, and a few petticoats once a year. Now they get in addition to this £12 a year. In Gramsbergen (Overyssel) a whole family, consisting of a mother, her daughter, and her two grown-up sons, earned no more than four or five guilders (8s. or 10s.) between them, but then they lived rent free. It is not wonderful, therefore, that farm-labourers are scarce, and that many a young man, unable to earn enough to keep body and soul together decently, seeks work in the factories here or in Belgium,[Footnote: According to a recent return, 56,506 Netherlands workmen are employed in Belgium.] while those who do not wish to give up agricultural pursuits migrate to Germany, where the demand for 'hands' is greater and the wages consequently higher. In former days strangers came to this country to earn money. Now the tables are turned, and the fact that Holland is situated between two countries whose thriving industries demand a greater number of workers every year will yet bring serious trouble and loss to Dutch agriculture. [Footnote: Just now great results are expected from the 'allotment system,' of which a trial has been made in Friesland on the extensive possessions of Mr. Jansen, of Amsterdam.] Chapter IX Rural Customs