Productive Industries 341 



to 149,013, or by 36 per cent.; about an average 

 increase of 1 per cent, per annum. The amount of 

 reclaimed soil increased between these dates at almost 

 exactly the same rate. 



The chief productive industries of Norway are three — 

 Fishing, Agriculture (including with that what is the 

 chief industry in Norway of this kind, cattle-breeding), 

 and the Felling of trees. I cite them in this order, not 

 because it represents the scale of their importance, but 

 because it is the order in which they first strike the 

 attention of the traveller. Probably one of his first 

 experiences in Xorway will be a visit to the fish-market 

 at Bergen, where the women in their picturesque dresses 

 and headgear, looking as if they had come straight out 

 of some drawing by Holbein, are to be seen bargain- 

 ing from the quay with men in round, rough caps, 

 in short jackets, and fishing-boots, who stand in their 

 boats just below them. Immediately on our landing in 

 any part of Norway, the rich hill-pastures, the cattle on 

 the mountain-sides, suggest the second industry of the 

 country. But in all the neighbourhood of the sea- 

 coast the trees are weather-worn and stunted. We 

 have to travel into the interior of the country, into the 

 upland region, which lies between the two Scandinavian 

 countries, before we come to the scene of the third great 

 industry of Norway, tree-felling. 



This order, too — Fishing, Agriculture, Wood-cutting 

 — which is the order of our acquaintance with them, is 

 likewise the order in which these industries have 

 become known to the people of Norway. The thought 

 of fisliing carries us back to those extremely ancient pre- 



