148 SCANDINAVIA. 



by regular parcellings amongst the communal body for a term of years, each 

 parcel being allotted successively to all the associates. Elsewhere the land was 

 divided unequally, in virtue of usages and traditions that had acquired the 

 force of law. Most of the forests were shared out according to the different species 

 of trees, one receiving the pines, another the firs, another the birches, while a 

 fourth took the grass, and a fifth the soil itself. Now the Norwegian law forbids 

 the division of the forest between two proprietors, who, being owners, one of 

 the soil, the other of the treen, would necessarily fall out. In other respects 

 common tenure was continually curtailed to the benefit of private holders. 

 Nevertheless nearly one-seventh part of Norway was still common land in 1876, 

 and even in the western provinces, between the Naze and Trondhj em-fiord, these 

 lands occupied on an average three- tenths of the country. 



The Norwegian proprietors have preserved the old odelsrci, or " allodial" right 

 of holding lands put up to sale free of rent. But the amount to be paid is 

 fixed not by the upset price, but according to a fresh valuation. The allodial 

 right, however, attaches only to families that have held land for at least 

 twenty years, and is forfeited unless claimed within three years after the 

 property has changed hands. The inheritance, formerly different for the 

 male and female issue, is now equalised for both sexes, and the testator 

 cannot dispose of more than one-fourth of the estate over the heads of his direct 

 issue. 



In consequence of this last legal disposition the land became very much cut 

 up. Apart from small patches situated in the towns, and useless except to 

 grow vegetables and flowers about the houses, landed estates properly so called 

 number about 430,000 in all Scandinavia ; that is, 300,000 in Sweden, 130,000 in 

 Norway. There would be a natural tendency amongst the people to increase the 

 number of lots indefinitely, each peasant desiring to become his own master, and 

 possess his mantal (literally " man-toll ") of land. But the law has intervened to 

 prevent this ruinous parcelling of the country. In Sweden all further distribution 

 is forbidden when the allotment becomes insufficient for the support of a 

 household of at least three members. Since 1827 another law, afterwards adopted 

 in German}' and Austria-Hungary, allowed the owner of several lots to demand a 

 fresh distribution, with a view to consolidating all the scattered plots. Estates 

 have thus become rounded ofi", to the great advantage of agriculture. They are, as 

 a rule, not very extensive, and Scandinavia has no such domains as many in Great 

 Britain and Ireland, which are veritable provinces, except indeed in the remote 

 region of Norrland, where the Goteborg merchant Dickson could traverse his 

 estates for days without reaching their limits. 



The tenant farmers, less numerous than the proprietors, are nearly all pro- 

 tected by long leases, but the so-called hnsmdn or torpare class do not pay their 

 rent in money, but by manual labour on the owner's lands, or by services in the 

 mines and forests. Amongst them are some at once owners and tenants, while 

 many are compelled by their precarious tenure to seek for subsidiary means of 

 existence, becoming artisans, woodmen, or fishers. 



