112 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Patit I. 





rise to various tedious but ingenious processes for making hay and drying corn. The 

 latter often remains in the fields in shocks, or in small 

 ricks, after the ground is covered with snow, till the 

 clear frosts set in, when it becomes dry, and may be 

 taken home. Besides the common mode of placing 

 the sheaves astride with the ears downwards on horizon- 

 tal fir poles {jig. 95. ), there are a variety of others. 

 In some places young fir trees, with the stumps of the 

 branches left on, are fixed in the ground, and the 

 sheaves hung on them, like flowers on a maypole, the 



topmost sheaf serving as a cap or finish to all the rest. Sometimes covered rails or racks 

 are resorted to (Jig. 83. ) : at other times skeleton roofs or racks are formed, and the sheaves 

 distributed over them (fig. 96.) Often in Norway the corn is obliged to be cut green, 

 from the sudden arrival of winter. Dr. Clarke found it in this state in October ; and 

 near Christiana it was suspended on poles and racks to dry, above fields covered with 

 ice and snow. Corn is threshed in the north of Sweden by passing over it a threshing- 

 carriage, which is sometiires 

 made of cast-iron, and has twenty 

 wheels, and sometimes more. 

 The sheaves are spread on a floor 

 of boards, and a week's labor of 

 one cart, horse, and man, will 

 not thresh more than a ton of 

 corn, the crop being always cut 

 before it is fully ripened, and then 

 dried on racks. The hay is some- 

 times dried in the same manner. 

 After all, they are in some seasons obliged to dry both, especially the corn, in sheds or 

 barns heated by stoves, as in Russia (662.). In mowing hay in Lapland the scythe, 

 the blade of which is not larger than a sickle, is swung by the mower to the right and 

 left, turning it in his hands with great dexterity. 



684. The forests of Sweden are chiefly of the wild pine and spruce fir; the latter 

 supplies the spars, and the former the masts and building timber so extensively exported. 

 The roads in Norway, as in some parts of Russia, are formed of young trees laid across 

 and covered with earth, or left bare. Turpentine is extracted : the outer bark of ths? 

 beech is used for covering houses, and the inner for tanning. The birch is also tapped 

 for wine ; and the spray of this tree, the elm, the alder, and willow, are dried with their 

 leaves on in summer, faggotted and stacked for winter fodder. The young wood and 

 inner bark of the pine, fir, and elm, are powdered and mixed with meal for feeding swine. 

 It is remarkable, that neither the inhabitants of Russia nor of Sweden have learned to 

 eat the seeds of the pine and fir tribe, which are both wholesome and agreeable, and 

 esteemed a delicacy in Italy. 



685. The chace is pursued as a profitable occupation in the northern parts of Sweden, 

 and for the same animals as in Russia. 



686. If any one, says Dr. Clarke, wishes to see what English farmers once were, and 

 how they fared, he should visit Norway. Immense families, all sitting down toge- 

 ther at one table, from the highest to the lowest. If but a bit of butter be called for in 

 one of these houses, a mass is brought forth weighing six or eight pounds ; and so highly 

 ornamented, being turned out of moulds, with the shape of cathedrals, set off with 

 Gothic spires and various other devices, that, according to the language of our English 

 farmers' wives, we should deem it almost a pity to cut it." (Scandinavia, ch. xvi.) 

 They do not live in villages, as in most other countries, but every one on his farm, how- 

 ever small. They have in consequence little intercourse with strangers, excepting 

 during winter, when they attend fairs at immense distances for the purpose of disposing 

 of produce, and purchasing articles of dress. ** What would be thought in England," 

 Dr. Clarke asks, of a laboring peasant, or the occupier of a small farm, making a 

 journey of nearly 700 miles to a fair for the articles of their home consumption ?" 

 Yet he found Finns at the fair at Abo, who had come from Torneo, a distance of 679 

 miles, for this purpose. 



687. With respect to imjirovement the agriculture of Sweden is perhaps susceptible of 

 less than that of any of the countries we have hitherto examined ; but what it wants will 

 be duly and steadily applied, by the intelligence and industry of all ranks in that country. 

 It must not be forgotten, however, that it is a country of forests and mines, and not of 

 agriculture. 



