At a time when France laid a heavy tax on imported laces, dogs made excellent smugglers. They were kept for a time on the French side of the line, petted and well fed; then they were sent over into Belgium, where they were allowed to become thoroughly homesick. Skins of larger dogs were lined with contraband lace and tied on to them, and they were headed for home and set free. Of course they naturally sought their own firesides, and the lace went with them. When the ruse was discovered, over forty thousand of them were captured and put to death. Since the war began, dogs have been of great service in dragging the mitrailleuses, the light machine-guns, as well as in helping their masters carry their household goods to a place of safety. The police dogs were wonderfully trained, and have been used by the Red Cross to find the wounded in remote places and to carry first aid. The same high standards of efficiency by which Belgian workmen made a national reputation for their various manufactures showed also in the cultivation of the ground. The whole western part of the country was one vast market-garden, but it was no happy chance of soil and climate that made it so. Generations of unbroken toil on the part of a patient, skilful peasantry, equipped with the most primitive tools but with a positive genius for their work, were necessary. So recently as the first half of the nineteenth century there was a wild stretch of land west of the Scheldt known as the Pays de Waes, which was uncultivated and desolate. Today it is wonderfully fertile, its little truck farms supporting five hundred people to the mile. [Illustration: "SINCE THE WAR BEGAN, DOGS HAVE BEEN OF GREAT SERVICE IN DRAGGING THE MITRAILLEUSES."] Flanders as a whole, indeed, had poor soil, often "an almost hopeless blowing sand." The method of reclamation usually began with the planting of oats, rye or broom. This was used three years for forage and then plowed in, after which the land became capable of producing clover. The rotation of crops was worked out with great care, according to the special needs of the soil. The Belgian wheat crop averaged thirty-seven bushels to the acre in 1913, while in the same year "up-to-the-minute" America raised only fifteen bushels. The soil is particularly suited to hemp and flax, the latter furnishing not only oil but fiber, of which the British markets bought ten million dollars' worth annually. Poppies were grown for oil. Tobacco yielded two tons to the acre, and white carrots eight hundred bushels.