98 NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



failed in their growth and ufual verdure, having no (loots at all, 

 at the tips of the twigs. Moft of the grain, that was fown, alfo 

 periflied, yielding only empty ears, infomuch that the difappointed 

 peafant was reduced to extreme diftrefs, from the uncertainty of 

 any advantages in the labours and charges of the enfuing year. 

 Something like this, tho' in a lefs degree, was felt in other places, 

 during the above-mentioned calamitous years * 



All thefe difadvantages do but furnifh more matter for ador- 

 ing, with the greater admiration, the impartial benignity of the 

 Almighty Creator, in his provifion for the fuftenance of the peo- 

 ple of Norway, not only in the variety of other means of fupport, 

 which fhall be fpecified in their proper place ; but by their har- 

 vefts, and fuccefs in agriculture, which, however inconfiderable, 

 in refped to thofe of other countries, are much larger than a 

 Abundant foreigner would conceive, till informed by an aclual fight of 

 i C n r fome rvefts tnem - Who would imagine, that Norway, in moft years, fhould 

 have fome thoufands of tuns of its own grain and produce, to 

 fpare for the adjacent provinces of Sweden ? And who would 

 imagine the fa&, which Arn. Bernfen reports i n his book on. the 

 fruitfulnefs of Denmark and Norway, that fome farms, even in 

 the diftricl of Nordland, beyond Drontheim, expend forty, nay 

 fome an hundred tuns of barley in feed, and that of a good kind 

 tho' not equal to the rye of this part of the country, which is 

 accounted preferable to that of Poland ? This fertility of Norway 

 even in its moft northern Provinces, as far as Finmark, to the 

 68 th, degree, cannot but excite the admiration of thinking per- 

 fons, mice a line being drawn from the midft of this fruitful pro- 

 vince of Nordland, that is, from the diftrid of Salten, eaftward, 

 over the mountain Kolen, into Swedifh Lapland, namely, Pitha- 

 Lapmark, or even more to the fouth, the country is one wild 

 barren wafte, tho', according to Mr. Hogftrom's moft ingenious 

 and authentic defcription of Swedifh Lapland, lately published, 

 colonies, or new inhabitants, have, at the public charge, and by 

 order of the government, been fent to cultivate thefe barren parts. 



* If we recoiled the weather from the year 1740 to the prefent year 1747, it mult 

 be allowed very extraordinary, The winters were long and fevere, the fummers but 

 moderate, with little rain in many places, an almoft continual ftrong wind at north- 

 eaft. It were to be wifhed that the naturalifts would favour the public with their 

 thoughts on fo interefting a fubject. Hamb. Mag. B. 1. 



For 



