achusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Her population is
7,500,000, less than the single State of New York. You could put
twenty-two Belgiums in our single State of Texas. Much of her soil is
thin; her handicaps are heavy, but the industry of her people has turned
the whole land into one vast flower and vegetable garden. The soil of
Minnesota and the Dakotas is new soil, and yet our farmers there average
but fifteen bushels of wheat to the acre. Belgium's soil has been used
for centuries, but it averages thirty-seven bushels of wheat to the
acre. If we grow twenty-four bushels of barley on an acre of ground,
Belgium grows fifty; she produces 300 bushels of potatoes, where the
Maine farmer harvests 90 bushels. Belgium's average population per
square mile has risen to 645 people. If Americans practised intensive
farming; if the population of Texas were as dense as it is in
Belgium--100,000,000 of the United States, Canada and Central America
could all move to Texas, while if our entire country was as densely
populated as Belgium's, everybody in the world could live comfortably
within the limits of our country.

THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE

And yet, little Belgium has no gold or silver mines, and all the
treasures of copper and zinc and lead and anthracite and oil have been
denied her. The gold is in the heart of her people. No other land holds
a race more prudent, industrious and thrifty! It is a land where
everybody works. In the winter when the sun does not rise until half
past seven, the Belgian cottages have lights in their windows at five,
and the people are ready for an eleven-hour day. As a rule all children
work after 12 years of age. The exquisite pointed lace that has made
Belgium famous, is wrought by women who fulfill the tasks of the
household fulfilled by American women, and then begins their task upon
the exquisite laces that have sent their name and fame throughout the
world. Their wages are low, their work hard, but their life is so
peaceful and prosperous that few Belgians ever emigrate to foreign
countries. Of late they have made their education compulsory, their
schools free. It is doubtful whether any other country has made a
greater success of their system of transportation. You will pay 50 cents
to journey some twenty odd miles out to Roslyn, on our Long Island
railroad, but in Belgium a commuter journeys twenty miles in to the
factory and back again every night and makes the six double daily
journ