132 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



cultivated tunnland of land in Sweden alone, with the inte- 

 rest of this mortgage debt, because much other land is 

 mortgaged, and some estates not at all : but let us lay a 

 yearly rental of 10 rqr. per tunnland on all the cultivated 

 land (and take the country through, I fancy there is more 

 worth less, than above that sum) in its present state. And 

 we will also reckon according to our last calculation, that 

 at the present day, 5 tunna of corn, is the average yield for 

 every tunnland of cultivated land throughout the country, 

 at the average price of about 10 rqr. per tunna; and this 

 will give us a yearly return of 50 rqr. per tunnland, from 

 which, if we deduct the yearly rent of 10 rqr., we leave a 

 balance of 40 rqr. (or above 2 5s.) in the Swedish farmer's 

 hands per tunnland, wherewith to pay labour, taxes, etc. ; 

 and allowing, according to our before- quoted calculation, a 

 sum of 25 rqr. per tunnland for cultivation, seed, and taxes, 

 there still remains 15 rqr. per tunnland for his maintenance. 

 So after all he is not so badly off, and this is the fair way 

 to look at it. 



This calculation is made after the present yield ; and now 

 I will insert another letter from a practical Swedish farmer, 

 written in 1863, which puts the matter in another light, and 

 a better one for the farmer, if his land is only properly ma- 

 naged ; because although I do not think corn will rise, I am 

 pretty certain that it will not fall below its present price. 



This letter not only bears me out in my views of this, to 

 Sweden, all-important question, but it will give the English 

 reader a far better idea of Swedish farming as it is now car- 

 ried on, and what it might be, than anything I can write on 

 the subject. The writer says : 



c ' There are two things to which we have had occasion 

 more than once to allude. The first is, that the land in 

 Sweden is overwhelmed with debt on account of the hypo- 

 theks, or mortgage loans, and other causes ; and the second, 

 that estates have been driven up in the market to false and 

 unnatural prices. Not that we lay much stress upon this 

 latter, because we assert that scarcely a 'single estate in 



