126 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



unusually heavy snow that had fallen a fortnight before. 

 All the cattle went out on the field to pasture, without 

 the farmers having to take thought for their food. 

 Indeed horses, cows, sheep, swine, geese, fowls, &c, 

 often go out by themselves and seek their food in the 

 fields the whole winter. For the cows they have also 

 houses to put them in sometimes at night during bad 

 weather, and a haystack close by in case of need ; the 

 sheep are not allowed any house at all, but they go 

 constantly under the open sky, summer and winter, 

 night and day. It is only on account of the small lambs, of 

 which they take a little care, that they are sometimes 

 kept under cover, under tak. During the last-fallen 

 heavy snow, which lay a long time, the sheep were kept 

 quartered only by a haystack, there to have their food 

 as long as the ground lay covered with snow. There is 

 also in this district no difficulty in keeping a large 

 number of cattle. A farmer also escapes the dis- 

 advantage of giving himself much trouble and unrest 

 in collecting fodder for the cattle during the winter 

 [as in Sweden]. 



In the houses where the folk dwell the fire burns on 

 the hearth all day, and a spjall is an entirely unknown 

 thing, as has already been said. Therefore, when it is 

 cold the folk sit round the fire, when often the one side 

 is hot while the other side freezes. 



The earth and the ground, Jorden och Marken, 

 takes here so little harm from cold and frost that one 

 can plough the whole winter through, and there is hardly 

 a month in the year in which [T. I. p. 152] some kind of 

 seed is not sown. Spring-rye, barley, and pease, were 

 already sown in the fields. Beans, pease, and other 

 kitchen-garden fruits, were already sown for the most 

 part by the close of February, and even by the middle 

 and the beginning of that month. 



