Holland's TragedySalt Sea Over Its Richest Soil
li Y„ HEBMi) riiBUW
FEB 8 1953
Floods Pose Life and Death Problem
for Dutch Farmers and Nation
Vn
By Don Cook
THE HAGUE (Wireless.) have been let go. They no longer
ON THE lips of some 30,000
Dutch farmers and in the
minds and hearts of every
one in this nation is a question
that is a historic life and death
matter for the Netherlands: How
quickly can we get the salt water
off our land?
The tragic answer is that the
outlook is not good at all, and the
longer the salt water lies on the
rich soil of the islands of Zeeland,
the longer it will take to restore
the productivity of this most pro
ductive of all Dutch farmlands.
The fact that the Dutch flood is
a salt-water flood capable of de
stroying the fertility of the soil
for three or even four crop years
is only one of the aspects that
make the disaster of last week so
vast and so deep.
Already it must be reckoned that
this flooded area which produced
25 per cent of Holland's total agri
cultural output is lost for the 1953
crop year.
If the salt water lies on the land
beyond April, then even 1954 will
see only a 60 per cent yield from
the soil. When, in 1949, the Dutch
finally completed dike rebuilding
and the pumping of the salt water
off Walchern Island, where the sea
walls were breached during the
war, they found it took four years
before full soil productivity was
restored.
Countless Breaks
The new dike breaks in the
islands of Zeeland are countless.
These lands were reclaimed from
the sea bit by bit over a 400-year
period.
First a small "polder" (as the
reclaimed farms are called) would
be diked in and drained, and then
an adjoining one and then another,
until finally, in modern times, the
great outer dikes and sea walls
were laid down. Thus the islands
are a crisscross of below-sea-level
farmland marked by surrounding
dikes.
But the interior dikes naturally
served any direct purpose.
What happened last week was
not just a breach of the big outer
dikes, but the washing away of
the old inner dikes one after
another as well. To clear the salt
sea, the inner defenses must now
be rebuilt, the water pumped out,
another ring repaired, the water
pumped out, and eventually the
outer line will again be reached.
But to rebuild dikes, Holland
must have stone, and the country
has to import all its building rocks
from Germany and from Belgium.
New piles must be sunk and the
soil built up around the rock base.
The average dike is about ten
yards wide at the top, frequently
carrying an asphalt surface rcad:
and twenty yards at the base. The
holes in the 400,000 flooded acres
run from ten to 300 yards.
Plenty oj Labor
Of labor there Is plenty, for'
unemployment is now being felt
in Holland and, more than that,
the farmers whose land is flooded
will naturally be turning to work
on the dikes to get their land
back. First hackings at repairs are
already under way, but the
weather has continued so bad, and
the sea is so heavy that it can
not be considered any kind of a
real start.
At the end of the week, the
statistical picture was about as
follows: 55,000 farm acres flooded,
but waters have receded; 22,000
acres still under salt water; 140,-
000 acres under brackish water.
A little late fodder may be
yielded from the under-water land
late this fall, but for crops the
360,000 acres are lost for 1953.
This is to say nothing of the
loss of cattle which is as yet un
counted, and the loss of potatoes
and sugar beets that were stored
on the flooded lands.
What the Land Produced
In the past, this land produced
28 per cent of Holland's barley; 19
per cent of its wheat; 30 per cent
of its flax; 32.5 per cent of its
onions; 28 per cent of the sugar
beets, and 9.5 per cent of the po
tatoes. The sugar beet loss may
well mean that Holland will have
to import sugar this year.
The Zeeland farmers were the
most prosperous of all the Dutch
and thrifty and conservative,
too. The land last year yielded
1,000 guilders per acre (about 250
dollars) after all costs were paid,
and the average farm was about 9
acres, putting the farmers in the
$2,250 net-income class.
The average secretarial and non-
skilled wage in Holland is but 120
guilders a month. More than that
there are some 6,000 "big farmers"
in Zeeland with an average 40-
acre holding in the $10,000 income
class.
The thrift and conservativeness
of these farmers will stand them
[in good stead as they wait out the
ionths ahead.
