Tree-felling 349 



will not have made iiiaiiy drives iu the country without 

 having seen instances of this turf-cutting in progress. 

 For there are many parts of Norway which are very 

 scantily supplied with trees. The extreme north of the 

 country produces no firs ; nothing but a little scrub 

 birch. Then, again (to" go farther south), the Lofoten 

 and the Vesteraalen islands, Bergenhus (farther south 

 still), and the ' Amt ' of Stavanger, have not enough 

 wood for the construction of their houses, and are 

 obliged to purchase it from districts farther east. 



It is when we get to the lands sloping up towards 

 the backbone of Scandinavia, and those near the 

 Swedish border, that we meet with the largest forests 

 and the finest trees. The total forest area of Norway 

 is reckoned to be a little more than one-fifth of the 

 whole area of the country. This forest district includes, 

 however, large tracts which are marshy and swampy 

 and bare of trees, or only produce stunted bushes. 



Theoretically after the days of Harald Harfagr the 

 forest rights iu Norway belonged to the crown ; for 

 Hakon's restoration to the bonders of their udal pos- 

 sessions did not affect the unsettled portions of the 

 country. But the crown rights were very little enforced 

 for many centuries ; and the forests were very little 

 protected. They sometimes suffered the most fearfully 

 destructive fires ; and this was especially the case during 

 the civil wars of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 

 Certain rights, moreover, w^ere preserved to the 

 people, such as the right to cut wood for building pur- 

 poses; a right which was obviously liable to a great 

 deal of abuse, because it was impossible to say in 

 cutting down a tree what portion of it would prove to 



