x

18 DELFT.

city of being drained, and on the quantity of draining that it requires. The expenses of this operation must be paid to the proprietors of the ancient mills, who, on their part, are bound to maintain them of sufficient force to drain all the water from the district over which their feudal rights extend. If the proprietor of an estate were to construct a mill for his own peculiar use, it would not exempt him from the payment to the proprietor of the ancient mill. It seems agreed on all hands, that the draining of land is too important to the community to be intrusted to the discretion of individuals; and hence the mills, though belonging to feudal proprietors, are under the superintendence of the government, which contrives| to draw a revenue as well as patronage from them. These

mills are solidly constructed with that minute accuracy, which

is imprinted on all the wheel-work in Holland. They have

moveable roofs, so as to present the vanes to the wind, at every

change, in a proper direction. Such is the power of some of these mills, that they will raise, to the height of four feet, seven hundred tons of water in a minute, but on the average they each discharge two hundred and fifty tons in a minute. The price, stated as the maximum of the value of land, will lead to the same conclusion as will be drawn from stating the minimum of pasture land, which is about four hundred and fifty or five hundred guilders, and lets from sixteen to twenty- one; thus the money invested in land in Holland can scarcely be made to pay an annual income of more than 25 to 3 per cent. interest on the capital. The wages of a day-labourer in agriculture in this district is about fifteen pence in summer,| and nine-pence in the winter, and they are provided with| food. This food is generally potatoes, when they are in season,| and at other times a kind of porridge, made of buck wheat