CHAPTER III. 



A CHAPTER ON SWEDISH PAEMTNG. 



ALTHOUGH not professing to be much of a farmer myself, 

 I have, during a country life been thrown much among 

 farmers in many lands, and in Sweden where nearly every 

 country gentleman farms his own land, it is impossible to 

 reside in the country without in a certain degree becoming 

 interested in agricultural pursuits. Moveover, for some 

 years I have lived on the best farming school in Wermland, 

 where I have had good opportunities of seeing the highest 

 style of farming in the middle of Sweden, and as it cannot fail 

 to interest the English reader, I shall endeavour to give him 

 a slight idea of the economy and system of agriculture of 

 Sweden at the present day. 



The reader who has glanced over my general description 

 of the country will be able to form some idea as to its 

 capabilities for agriculture, and although Sweden (with the 

 exception of four or five southern provinces) cannot certainly 

 be called an agricultural country, yet there is hardly any other 

 which I know of, whose inhabitants are so much dependent 

 upon the produce of the soil for their subsistence, especially 

 when we consider that seven-eighths of the population live 

 in the country, every one of whom is more or less a farmer. 

 I may here add, however, that I have seen some very 

 slovenly farming in Skane, which is their crack farming 

 province ; in fact, although they are much more favoured by 

 climate and the nature of the soil in the southern provinces, 

 1 doubt if their system of farming itself there, is at all before 

 Wermland. Much as the Swedish farmer has to contend with 



