244 SPORT IN NORWAY. 
and similar hole, connected by a drain with the former, 
and in this manner by a network of drains and holes 
dug at convenient distances, the whole field can be 
irrigated in a comparatively short space of time. ‘The 
farmer thus renders himself in a great measure in- 
dependent of rain; and indeed in those parts where this 
system of irrigation is carried on, he views with great 
concern the approach of wet weather. ‘The rain 
I can make for myself, but I can’t manufacture hot 
weather,” he says.* 
As might be supposed, in the neighbourhood of 
Christiania, and of other important towns, farming is 
carried on after a much more improved method than in 
the interior; and it is a common thing now-a-days 
for young men to study the science of agriculture in 
Scotland, a country which in so many respects re 
sembles their own. 
To the peasants who live far up in the interior, 
remote from the sea-coast, a good haytime and _ harvest 
is of inexpressible value. During the last two or three 
years, however, the rainy weather has been very adverse 
to good crops, and poor harvests have been the result.t 
* When I first saw the operation, I was under the impression that 
the man was wilfully trampling and breaking down the standing 
corn. 
+ In the old heathen times, when unpropitious weather and bad 
harvests happened, the blame thereof was attached to the king; 
and if no other remedy was found of avail, his subjects would sacri- 
fice him to the gods, in order to propitiate the Divine wrath. This 
fate happened to King Domalde in Upsala, who, after two bad years 
