174 RURAL DENMARK 



riddled stuff, a famished country. Moreover, the 

 climate is not of the best, and for a great part of the 

 year damp and cold, so that the stock need much 

 housing. In short, considered from an agricultural 

 point of view, the British Isles far surpass Denmark 

 in natural advantages. 



Here, as the point is important, I am glad to be 

 able to supplement my own opinion by that of the 

 Scottish Agricultural Commission as set down in its 

 most excellent Report published in pamphlet form in 

 1904. The Commission says : 



" The sandy detritus of the ice age, the scrapings 

 of hard crystalline rocks, has given Denmark more 

 poor than good land, and much of it we could know 

 by no other name than a ' hungry soil.' Nor is 

 the climate congenial. The situation is insular, but 

 the islands and peninsula constituting the country are 

 in proximity to the cold German Ocean on the one 

 hand and the icy Baltic on the other, while they are 

 near enough Finland and Russia to come under the 

 influence of the rigorous cold of a continental winter. 

 As the country is low-lying, and either flat or undulat- 

 ing, there being no sheltering hills the highest point 

 above sea-level is 550 feet the country must often 

 be exposed to the fury of harsh, sweeping winter 

 winds. The summer, although very good, is so short 

 and dry that oats have scarcely time to grow and 

 mature an abundant crop, and one of the problems 

 engaging the attention of experiment stations in 

 Denmark is to find a variety that can be sown one 

 year and harvested the next ; while farm live-stock 

 have to be comfortably housed and tended within 

 doors for the greater part of the year." 



Notwithstanding these drawbacks, in addition to 



