Today we arrived in Kinderdijk for a tour of the polders(areas of marsh drained) and dijks and windmills. Polders are the areas of the Netherlands that have been reclaimed from the north sea for farming. In the old days a dijk would be built around an area they wanted to reclaim and then a windmill or series of windmills would be built to carry the water out of the area and into a canal that would then lead to a larger canal and eventually to the sea. Each windmill was only capable of lifting the water 4 feet in height therefore depending on how high the water needed to be lifted would determine how many windmills were needed. The process of emptying an area could take upwards of 15 years. Once the water was gone then peat would remain. Much of that would be dug up and burned as fuel. What was left was really unsuitable for crops other than potatoes and grass. This is why the Netherlands has so many cows and dairy farms and therefore cheese. I think they told us that over 60% of the Netherlands is reclaimed and up to 6 meters below sea level.
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