Book I. 



AGRICULTURE IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 



109 



duced the improved Scotch husbandry, drained extensively, established a dairy, and 

 introduced the potato there and on other estates belonging to his master. Others have 

 made similar eftbrts, and several British farm bailiffs are now settled in Russia. The 

 foreigners, merchants in Petersburg, or Riga, or in the employ of government, have also 

 contributed to the improvement of agriculture. Many of these, intending to establish 

 their families in Russia, purchase estates, and some receive presents in land from the 

 emperor. On these they in general introduce the culture of their native country, which, 

 if only in the superiority of the live stock and implements, is certain of being better 

 than that of the natives. In short, from these circumstances, and from the comjmratively 

 rational views of the present government, there can be no doubt of the rapid increase of 

 agriculture and population in Russia. 



Sect. VIII. Of the present State of Agriculture in Sweden and Norway. 



686. Siveden and Norway are not agricultural countries ; but still great attention has 

 been paid to perfect such culture as they admit of, both by the government and indi- 

 viduals. From the time of Charles XI., in the end of the seventeenth century, various 

 laws for the encouragement of agriculture have been passed, professorships founded, 

 rewards distributed, and the state of the kingdom, in respect to its agricultural resources, 

 examined by Linnaeus and other eminent men. Norway, till lately under the dominion 

 of Denmark, is chiefly a pastoral country ; but its live stock and arable culture have 

 been much improved during the end of the last, and beginning of the present, century, 

 by the exertions of the Patriotic Society established in that country, which gives pre- 

 miums for the best improvements and instructions in every part of farming. Our notices 

 of the rural economy of these countries are drawn from Clarke, Thomson, James, and 

 our own memoranda, made there in 1813. 



687. The climate of Sweden and Norway is similar to that of the cold and very cold 

 regions of Russia, but rather milder in its southern districts, on account of the numer- 

 ous inlets of the sea. The lands on the sea- coast of Norway are not, on this account, so 

 cold as their latitude would lead us to expect ; still the winters are long, cold, and dreary ; 

 and the summers short and hot, owing to the length of the day and the reflection of the 

 mountains. So great is the difference of temperature, that at Sideborg, in the latitude of 

 Upsal, in June or July, it is frequently eighty or eighty-eight degrees, and in January 

 at forty or fifty below the freezing point. The transition from sterility to luxuriant 

 vegetation is in -this, as it is in similar climates, sudden and rapid. In the climate of 

 Upsal, the snow disappears in the open fields from the 6th to the 10th of May ; barley 

 is sown from the 13th to the 15th of that month, and reaped about the middle of August. 

 In some parts of Norway corn is sown and cut within the short period of six or seven 

 weeks. According to a statement published in the Amcen. Acad. vol. iv., a Lapland 

 summer, including also what in other countries are called spring and autumn, consists 

 of fifty-six days, as follows : 



June 23. snow melts. 

 July 1. snow gone. 



9. fields quite green. 



17. plants at full growth. 



25. plants in full blow. 



Aug. 2. fruits ripe. 



10. plants shed their seeds. 



18. snow . 

 From this time to June 23. the ground is every 

 where covered with snow, and the waters with ice. 



In such a climate no department of agriculture can be expected to flourish. The cul- 

 ture of corn is only prevalent in two districts, east Gothland, and the eastern shores of 

 the Gulf of Bothnia, now belonging to Russia. 



688. The surface of Sweden every body knpws to be exceedingly rocky and hilly, and 

 to abound in fir and pine forests, and in narrow green valleys, often containing lakes or 

 streams. " Sweden," Dr. Clarke observes, " is a hilly, but not a mountainous country, 

 excepting in its boundary from the Norwegian provinces. It has been remarked, that in 

 all countries, the abutment of the broken strata, which constitute the earth's surface every 

 where, causes a gradual elevation to take place towards the north-west ; hence, in all 

 countries, the more level districts will be found upon the eastern, and the mountainous 

 or metalliferous region upon the western side ; either placed as a natural boundary 

 against the territory occurring next in succession ; or terminating in rocks of primary 

 formation opposed as cliffs towards the sea." {^Clarke's Scandinavia.) This is precisely 

 the case with Sweden : the south-eastern provinces are level and cultivated ; a ridge 

 of mountains on the west separates it from Norway ; and the intermediate space, from 

 Gothenberg to Tornea, may be considered as one continued forest, varied by hills, rocks, 

 lakes, streams, glades of pasture, and spots of com culture. Norway may be consi- 

 dered as a continuation of the central country of Sweden, terminated by cliffs opposed 

 to the ocean. The tops and sloping sides of the mountains," Dr. Clarke observes, 

 are covered with verdure ; farms are stationed on a series of tabular eminences, 

 and grazing around them the herds of cattle all the way from the top to the bottom, 



