LAND TENUES. 147 



almost any forage, and in many places living on a fish diet. Tiie sheep 

 of the heaths, small, bony, covered with a coarse wool, with hairy legs, heads, 

 and sometimes even tails, have a marvellous jDOwer of endurance, Alono* 

 the Stavanger coast and farther north in all the archipelagos the flocks pass 

 the winter in the of)en air, exposed to wind, rain, and snows, living on 

 heather and seaweeds. In the island of Gotland there is also a particular breed 

 of spirited and half-wild little ponies which pass nearly the whole year in the 

 open. 



The importance of the forests in the rural economy of Scaiidinavia is well 

 known. Timber represents about one-half of all the Swedish exports. Beams, 

 planks, joists, stays, and shafts for mines are shipped from the ports of the Gulf 

 of Bothnia and at Goteborg for Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, New 

 Zealand ; but more than one-half of this trade is with England. The Scandinavian 

 timber trade represents a yearly value of over £8,000,000, of which £5,200,000 

 belongs to Sweden. Yet, notwithstanding its importance, forestry has not hitherto 

 received all the attention it deserves, and the virgin forests alone have so far been 

 tapped. Operations are carried on chiefly in remote districts, where the woodmen, 

 mostly held in a sort of serfdom by the traders, who make the necessary advances 

 at heavy interest, are compelled to build temporary huts in which to pass the 

 season of cold and darkness, when the hardest work has to be done. The horses 

 remain under shelter, protected only by woollen cloths. The trunks marked with 

 the axe are dragged through the snow to the river banks, where they are floated 

 down over falls and rapids, from like to lake, to the saw-mills, where they are 

 worked up into beams and planks. In several inland districts the river and lake 

 beds are thickly strcAvn with stems, which, having failed to do the journey within a 

 year, have bean dried by the summer sun upon the banks, and then water-logged at 

 the floodings. When certain lakes are drained, the alluvia of their beds are found 

 mingled with several successive layers of rotten trees. 



LA^'D Tenure. 



About 4,000,000, or nearly two-thirds of the entire Scandinavian population, 

 are estimated to live on the cultivation of the laud and direct trade in its jjroduce. 

 The small proprietors form a tolerably large proportion of the rural element, and 

 most of the farmers cultivate their temporary holdings under the guarantee of 

 traditional usages, which give them a real independence. The Norwegian, like the 

 Swedish peasantry, have alwaj's preserved the right to choose their own domicile 

 and acquire land. They were never serfs, like those of the greater part of Europe, 

 and the Danish laws obliging the peasant to remain in his birthplace till his 

 fortieth year were unknown north of the Skager Rak. Common lands were, and 

 still are, very numerous in Scandinavia. Waste grounds, mountain pastures, and 

 forests belong mostly to several heads of families, to a whole parish, or even to 

 several jomtly. In many places, also, the old common tenure had been rej)laced 



