" Says Da Silva:[8] "The growth of the peasantry is stunted
by insufficient nourishment, which consists largely of chestnuts,
beans and chick-peas."
[Footnote 3: _Prize Essay on Portugal_, London, 1854.]
[Footnote 4: _Parliamentary Papers_, London, 1870.]
[Footnote 5: _Estudos Estatisticos, hygienicos e administrativas sobre
as doencas e a mortalidade do exercito Portuguez_, etc., by Dr. Jose
Antonio Marques, Lisbon, 1862.]
[Footnote 6: Doria, p. 184.]
[Footnote 7: The Registrar-General of England.]
[Footnote 8: L.A. Rebello da Silva (minister of marine), _Economia.
Rural_, Lisbon, 1868.]
The utmost area of land which the average Portuguese peasant can
cultivate is two and a half acres: in the United States the average of
cultivated land per laborer is over thirty-two acres; on prairie-land
sixty acres is not uncommon. Forrester writes: "In the Alto Douro, the
richest portion of the kingdom, the villages are formed of wretched
hovels with unglazed windows and without chimneys. Instead of bread or
the ordinary necessaries of life, one finds only filth, wretchedness
and death.
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