AGRICULTURE. 133 



Sweden during the period of high prices, has been bought 

 too dear by a purchaser who had anything to lose, but that, 

 on the contrary, not one in ten has been bought with the 

 purchaser's own capital. This is where the fault lies, and 

 it is on this account that land in Sweden does not, as they 

 justly say, give interest for the purchase-money. 



' ( From this source has arisen our agricultural distress. 

 Our farmers need more capital, and therefore these debts 

 have arisen. 



" The question now arises, what agriculture in Sweden 

 really is at the present day, and to what it ought to come 

 with sufficient capital. 



" Considering this important question, we must first set 

 forth agriculture as it now stands undisguised, in order 

 that we may hereafter the more readily show the reason why 

 agriculture in Sweden does not stand as high as in Belgium, 

 Saxony, Scotland, or other lands, whose natural relations 

 are very similar to our own. For this purpose we will 

 neither choose the best, nor the worst side of the question, 

 but take a moderate view of it ; for, notwithstanding the 

 very great improvement that has taken place in agriculture 

 within the last twenty years, it is certain that there are 

 very few estates in Sweden which have risen above the 

 medium we have taken. 



" Let us take an estate of an area of 200 tunnland (244 

 English acres), in a good farming district, of which 100 

 tunnland are arable, the other 100 consisting of bad meadow, 

 the produce of which in its present state will hardly pay for 

 getting, and the rest, woods and mosses, (and this is a very 

 fair general description of most of the Swedish estates at the 

 present day) . As we are speaking solely of agriculture, we 

 will not allude to any estate which gives an additional income, 

 by brick or tile-making, mills, timber, or the like. 



' ' The land, as is usually the case in Sweden, is poor, and 

 in bad condition ; the buildings, probably, in fair order, but 

 very inadequate and insufficient for an improved system of 

 agriculture. 



" The price of such an estate, as times now are, to purchase, 



