ioo NATURAL HI S TO R Y of NO R WAT, 



are few, as to the beft of my knowledge they, in moll places, 

 never lie fallow, but are every year plowed and fowed, bear all 

 kinds of grain, barley and oats efpecially, and not only fix, eight, 

 or ten fold, but in fome places with a much greater increafe*4 

 and the corn is generally allowed to be longer, and the ears fuller, 

 than what is imported from Denmark and Germany, being infe- 

 rior only to the En glim corn, which the Norwegians prefer to any 

 other. I fhall foon come to treat of every fort of grain, under its 

 particular head. 



As to the caufe of this fertility, which may appear very ftrange 

 to foreigners, tho' it be fTri&ly true, I fhall give them the follow- 

 caufeofthis ing indifputable account of it: The Almighty Creator, fo wife 

 fertility. an j bountiful in his ceconomy towards mankind, and whofe great- 

 nefs appears moft confpicuoufly in the flender means he feems to 

 make ufe of, appears to confer a double bleffing on thofe fmall 

 parcels of good land called clofes and fields, which in other parts 

 are looked upon only as little inclofures, and feparated fpots ; 

 yet he does not effect this in any fupernatural or immediate man- 

 ner. We know, that moifture and heat, are the two great pro- 

 moters of fertility, and the fields of Norway enjoy a fufficiency of 

 both f . They are not liable to fuch frequent and long droughts 

 as other countries, being fupplied either by rains or fprings, gently 

 ifliiing from the mountains, or the meltings of the maffes of fnow 

 on the tops of the mountains. Befides, the fnow-water, as well as 

 the fnow itfelf, is of a rich nature, fo as by fome to be thought a 

 kind of manure. And when the fields begin to be parched, which 

 is chiefly in the vallies, by the refle&ion of the fun, they are more 

 eafily refrefhed by watering than in other countries, as being few, 

 and of no great extent. In fome parts, particularly Guldbrandf- 



* Mr. Lucas Debes, in his account of Ferroe, p. 196, fays, that a tun of corn-' 

 feed often yields twenty or thirty tuns of corn, yet is this in the main but a fmall 

 matter, amidft fuch a fcarcity of corn-ground, and where few can fow above a tun 



+ " Tanta eft foli ccelique fcecunditas interrupes boreales, ut feminaterrse commiffa 

 multiplici fcenore agricolas beent. In infulis Ferroenfibus, ex unico hordei grano, 

 quinquaginta culmi cum totidem fpicis excrefcunt, granis turgidi, paucitatem terne 

 N. B. uberi proventu refarciente natura. Non fabulas narro. Ipfe culmos vidi et 

 manibus hie palpavi." And in another paifage foon after : ■" Ratio fercilitatis bo- 

 realis ex nivibus repetenda terram imprasgnantibus, et ex folis radiis, qui inter rupes 

 fortius ao-unt. Et quanquam rupibus fuperftrata terra profunda non fit, ea tamen 

 recipiendts fovendifque radicibus frumenti fufficit, quoniam, ut Theophraftus docet, 

 Lib 1 de Cauf. Plant, c. xxii. plures quidem frumentum radices capeffit, fed non 

 aite'defcendunt." Th. Bartholin, Ad. Med. Hafn. Vol. 1. p. 66. 



dale. 



