country one-half of which is below the level of the
water, some of it sixteen feet lower than the ocean, which is only a few
miles away! What watchfulness and anxiety bordering upon fear must
occupy every moment, both day and night! In a single century there were
thirty-five great inundations which literally swallowed up several
hundred thousand people. Instead of being disheartened, like ants, they
went to work at once to rebuild the dykes, and with the aid of hundreds
of gigantic windmills pumped the water back into the sea.

These windmills are not only used to pump water, but they saw wood,
grind corn, crush seeds, make paper, and do about everything else. While
they are imperilled all the time by water, they make the water serve
them in numerous ways. Their fences are ditches filled with water. How
their cattle and horses have been trained to stay in, a small lot
surrounded by narrow ditches filled with water which they could easily
jump over, is a mystery, but every visitor to Holland has seen it with
his own eyes.

These Dutch people are great farmers and stock raisers. As their country
has no minerals, the people depend upon agriculture more perhaps than in
any other part of the world. Supporting a population of four hundred and
seventy people to the square mile, every foot of the land of course is
tilled carefully. The main agricultural product is potatoes, of which
they raise about one hundred million bushels per annum. Then come oats,
twenty million bushels, rye, fifteen million and about a third as much
wheat.

The Hollanders build ships, refine sugar, dredge oysters, distill liquor
and brew beer. They manufacture carpets, leather and paper goods, make
chocolate, cut diamonds as well as produce gold and silver articles and
pottery. The farmer uses his cow like one of the family. He keeps her in
the house when the weather is cold, washes and combs her hair more often
than his own, and keeps her room as clean as the parlor. She chews her
cud contentedly and the only thing about her which is tied up is her
tail, which is generally fastened to a beam above to keep it from
getting soiled. Of course, milk, butter and cheese are not a small part
of the living of these people. Often in a Holland home the sitting room,
dining room and sleeping room are one and the same. People often sleep
in bunks one above the other like berths on a ship or sleeping car.

The great bird in Holland is the stork, which is kept and