146 



SCANDINAVIA. 



Fig. 74. 



-Relative PiîOPoitTiON of Arable Lands ix 

 Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. 



"NORWAY SWEDEN DENMARK 



Cullhafed. 



Meado'Ns . 



Fort-Sls . 



NotCvllmlei. 



WaLRr. 



also yearly adds many thousands of acres to her agricultural domain by the 

 drainage of fiords and marshes. In all the upland valleys and inland plains of 

 Scandinavia settlers are gradually transforming the land. Thus the province of 

 Smâland takes its name from the *' small " squatters, who have here cleared the 

 former woodlands. Encroaching step by step on the wilderness of rocks and 

 forests, the hardy pioneers covered the land with little oases, where they long 

 remained in a state of republican isolation from the rest of the kingdom. 



The primitive method of clearance consisted simply of setting fire to a portion 

 of the forest or heath, and throwing the seed into the ashes, and in some few 



inland districts this rudimentary 

 plan of the Laplanders still sur- 

 vives. But Swedish agriculture is 

 on the whole distinguished by a 

 suitable rotation of crops, systematic 

 manuring, and a judicious employ- 

 ment of machinery. Obliged in the 

 last century to import cereals, 

 Sweden now produces more than 

 is needed for food, the support of 

 domestic animals, and distilling. 

 Hence it exports largely, though 

 still obliged to import a certain pro- 

 portion of rye, wheat, and flour. In 

 ]yorway the tracts favoured by heat 

 and moisture are relatively more 

 productive than those of Sweden, 

 but they are too restricted to supply 

 the wants of the entire population, 

 and about one-third of the yearly 

 consumption has to be imported, 

 flour coming even from the bleak 

 regions of Northern Hussia through 

 Archangel. 



The breeding of live stock has 

 of late years kept pace with agri- 

 cultural progress in other respects. 

 Although they have not increased in numbers, the animals are now much 

 better tended, with corresponding results. Great Britain has long imported 

 cattle, butter, and eggs from Sweden, mainly through Goteborg. Still the 

 peninsula is far inferior to Denmark in the number of its herds, the soil being 

 so much less suited for the production of fodder. The native stock has been 

 almost everywhere modified by crossings ; but in the upper valleys of the Kjolen 

 and on the Norwegian seaboard there is still preserved a mountain breed, of 

 ungainly appearance, small-sized, and hornless, but remarkably hrddy, thriving on 



