History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 269

FLEMINGS IN MANITOBA
To understand what "pulled" and "pushed" many Belgians to emigrate to North
America and elsewhere in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is best to begin by
looking at what happened during the time period they left Belgium.
Circumstances which stimulated Belgian emigration*
The small country of Belgium (30.500 km2) experienced a profound economic and
social transformation over a short period of time which offers a partial explanation
for the emigration of several hundred of thousand inhabitants during the first
century following Independence from the Netherlands in 1830. Here are its
provinces:

In contrast to what was happening in the neighbouring countries, the small
unproductive Belgian farms, which averaged half the size of those in France and
five times smaller than in Great Britain, continued to set the pace. Almost threequarters of the farmers worked less than one hectare of land and in the province
of Luxembourg one third of the agricultural land lay fallow.
During the 1850's, when cattle was used as draught animals and manure
producers - the production of milk was low and not very lucrative - so barely one
eighth of the farmland could be fertilised with manure. This was cyclic: The
production of milk was low because the cows didn't have enough food and the
food for the cows was inadequate because there was not enough manure to
"feed" the land.
As a result of the continuing division of the farms among a rising number of
farmers' children, the parcels of land became smaller, the diversity in crops
greater and farming conditions more difficult. Most members of large families no
longer found employment on the farm. A considerable labour surplus became
apparent which activated a migration of the rural population to other economic
sectors.

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