PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 



255 



In several places river-water is utilized for irrigation, and ir- 

 rigated meadow -lands were calculated to cover an area of 28.4 

 square kilometres in 1909. 



The only cultivated soil in Iceland is that of home-fields (tun) 

 around the farm-buildings. These home-fields are manured and levelled, 

 but generally are not ploughed. The extent of the cultivated areas 

 (tunes) of the whole of Iceland was in 1909 calculated to be 187.8 

 square kilometres; to this should be added 2.8 sq. km. for the cab- 

 bage and potato plots. There are often numerous knolls in the tunes, 

 which render haymaking very difficult (Fig. 17). Therefore the im- 

 provement of the soil consists in the levelling of these knolls, which, 

 however, reappear in several places after a time. The nature of the 

 tunes and the quality of the soil naturally differ greatly according 

 to cultivation and situation. The grass (tada) from the tunes con- 

 sists mainly of Gramineas, and, as already mentioned, is used as 

 winter fodder for the cows. In 1910, 5145 tons of tun-hay (tada) 

 were cut. Outside the home-fields there is also a great deal of dry 

 grassland (harflvelli) covered with Graminese, which is chiefly used 

 as pasture-land for sheep and cattle. In the soil of the tunes and 

 the dry grassland a larger quantity of lime and phosphoric acid is 

 usually found than in that of the wet meadow-tracts. l 



As in other arctic and subarctic regions, "soil-flows" (Soliiluk- 

 tion) are a common phenomenon in Iceland, and they exercise, 

 especially in mountainous regions, no slight influence upon the soil 

 and plant-growth. The upper layer of the soil upon slopes and 



and in Bunadarrit. XXII, 1908, pp.265 and 266. No. 1 is by Feilberg and YV e- 

 stermann, Nos. 2. 3, 4, 5 and 8 by Detlefsen and Meyer; Nos. 6 and 7 by A. 

 Torfason. Nos. 5 and 8 appear somewhat doubtful. 



1 P. Feilberg in Tidsskrift for Landokonomi, 1881, pp. 8 12. 



