All taken, they grow in Belgium more than 76,000,000 bushels of cereals--that is, fifteen and seven-tenths bushels per acre of the cultivable area--while the corresponding figure for Great Britain is only eight and a half bushels; and they keep almost twice as many cattle upon each cultivable acre as is kept in Great Britain.[54] Moreover, they even export cattle and horses. Up to 1890 Belgium exported from 36,000 to 94,000 head of cattle, from 42,000 to 70,000 sheep, and from 60,000 to 108,600 swine. In 1890 these exports suddenly came to an end--probably in consequence of a prohibition of such imports into Germany. Only horses continue to be exported to the amount of about 25,000 horses and foals every year. Large portions of the land are given besides to the culture of industrial plants, potatoes for spirit, beet for sugar, and so on. However, it must not be believed that the soil of Belgium is more fertile than the soil of this country. On the contrary, to use the words of Laveleye, “only one half, or less, of the territory offers natural conditions which are favourable for agriculture”; the other half consists of a gravelly soil, or sands, “the natural sterility of which could be overpowered only by heavy manuring.” Man, not nature, has given to the Belgium soil its present productivity. With this soil and labour, Belgium succeeds in supplying nearly all the food of a population which is denser than that of England and Wales, and numbers 589 inhabitants to the square mile. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--Proportion of the cultivated area which is given to cereals altogether, and to wheat, in Belgium. The square which encloses the wheat square represents the area given to both wheat and a mixture of wheat with rye.] If the exports and imports of agricultural produce from and into Belgium be taken into account, we can ask ourselves whether Laveleye’s conclusions are not still good, and whether only one inhabitant out of each ten to twenty requires imported food. In the years 1880-1885 the soil of Belgium supplied with home-grown food no less than 490 _inhabitants per square mile_, and there remained something for export--no less than £1,000,000 worth of agricultural produce being exported every year to Great Britain. But it is not possible to say with certitude whether the conditions are the same at the present time. [Illustration: FIG. 3.--Proportion of cultivated and uncultivated areas in Great Britain, Belgium, and France. _a_, Wheat; _b_, wheat and rye mixed; _c_, other cereals; _d′_, green crops; _d_, permanent pasture; _e_, uncultivated.]