go SWEDEN - AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 



low the preliminaty work necessary to the exploitation of forests to be un- 

 dertaken in the propitious season. 



Half the new huts had been built bj^ the owners of the forests or the 

 trees; half by the workmen themselves, vidth or without compensation. Huts 

 built b}^ emplo3'ers are generally very superior to those which the labourers 

 have been able to make for themselves. A mistaken economy has caused 

 the latter to be constructed as cheaply and quickly as possible, regardless 

 of considerations of hygiene. A fire-hut is said usually to cost lOO crowns 

 in addition to the wood used for it, and the Httle chimney-huts of the 

 charcoalburners' type only half as much. The cost of the larger and 

 better equipped huts is sometimes two or three hundred crowns or even 

 more. 



Most of the huts examined were built of dead and dry pinewood, but 

 green wood had been used to build quite a third of them, either wholly 

 or partially. The roofs were made of split trunks or boards , a layer of 

 mud or other substance being inserted to conser^-e the heat, and the whole 

 being in most cases crowned bj^ a sloping roof, off which the water ran, 

 made of split trunks, boards, shingles, tarred cardboard, birch bark or si- 

 milar material. The floor was generall}^ of beaten mud, only about a fifth 

 of the huts, and those generalty chimney-huts, having wood floors. A third 

 of the huts had no window, the others a sort of skyhght a few inches square. 

 We have alread mentioned the fireplaces. As sleeping accommodation 

 three fourths of the huts had common camping places while in the others 

 there were beds or box-beds. 



As regards the general conclusions made by the local investigators 

 as to the huts they examined, the fire-huts, with their central fireplaces, their 

 large outlets for smoke and other openings, were found to be more defective 

 than the more compact chimney- huts. Of huts of the former type 62.1 

 per cent, were called draughty, 47.1 percent, cold, 39.7 per cent, damp and 

 54.8 per cent, smoky ; while among huts of the latter tj^pe these percentages 

 were, respectively, 37.8, 25.7, 25.3 and 28.9. 



The ground area of one of these forest huts is on an average that of 

 one inhabited room — 22.9 square metres ; but since the roof is lower the 

 cubic area is proportionatelv small, averaging 42.9 cubic metres. vSince 

 most of the forest huts were built and equipped exactly to meet determined 

 needs the numberof their inhabitants is less variable but also much larger 

 than that of the farm lodgings. If all the huts be taken together the ave- 

 rage ground area for one person is found to be 2.8 square metres, the 

 cubic area 5.4 cubic metres. The average ground area for one person is 2.8 

 square metres in the fire-huts, considered separately, 3.1 square metres in 

 the chimney-huts, while the average cubic area is 5 cubic metres in the 

 fire-hvits and 5.8 cubic metres in the chimney-huts, overcrowding being 

 thus most acute in the fire-huts. In huts of both kinds the space allotted 

 to one person is ver>' inferior to the minimum generally considered hy- 

 gienically necessary. However exigencies in the matter of cubic area can 

 and shotdd be different and considerably less when there is question not 

 of closed rooms but of temporaiy and scattered dwellings, having many di- 



