274 Of the Checks to Population Bk. ii. 



It has been more the custom of late years than 

 formerly to divide farms; and as the vent for 

 commodities in Norway is not perhaps sufficient 

 to encourage the complete cultivation of large 

 farms, this division of them has probably contri- 

 buted to the improvement of the land. It seems 

 indeed to be universally agreed, among those who 

 are in a situation to be competent judges, that 

 the agriculture of Norway in general has ad- 

 vanced considerably of late years ; and the regis- 

 ters show, that the population has followed with 

 more than equal pace. On an average of ten 

 years, from 1775 to 1784, the proportion of births 

 to deaths was 141 to 100.* But this seems to 

 have been rather too rapid an increase ; as the 

 following year, 1785, was a year of scarcity and 

 sickness, in which the deaths considerably ex- 

 ceeded the births; and for four years afterwards, 

 particularly in 1789, the excess of births was not 

 great. But in five years from 1789 to 1794, the 

 proportion of births and deaths was nearly 150 

 to lOO.f 



* Thaarupt's Statistik der Danischen Monarchic, vol. ii. p. 4. 



t Id. table i. p. 4. In the Tableau Statistique des Etats 

 Danois, since published, it appears that the whole number of 

 births for the five years subsequent to 1 794, was 138,799, of deaths 

 94,530, of marriages 34,313. These numbers give the proportion 

 of births to deaths as 146 to 100, of births to marriages as 4 to 1, 

 and of deaths to marriages as 275 to 100. The average propor- 

 tion of yearly births is stated to be ^, and of yearly deaths Jy of 

 the whole population, vol. ii. ch. viii. 



