io 4 NATURAL HISTORY of NO RWAY. 



which I like wife efteem worthy of public notice: " If the fitua- 

 tion of a fwampy field be fuch, that the cold moifture cannot be 

 carried of by veiters, the natural refource is the warm and dry 

 dung of horfes and fwine. Where the foil is dry and deep 

 enough, fheeps-dung is the manure for barley; as cow or ox 

 dung for oats ; but if very hungry, fandy or hilly, for fuch there 

 is no better manure than the earth of molehills in the fwampy 

 countries, which at harveft is collected for this purpofe. By this 

 diftribution of every kind of dung or manure, varied according 

 to the foil, all the plowed lands may in time be improved doubly, 

 and be brought nearly to an equal goodnefs. 



SECT. IV. 



All kinds of grain are fown in Norway, though not every where 

 to equal advantage. In Hedemark, Jeddern, and in Nordland, 

 rye thrives beft, but the very beft is the burnt rye, which is fown 

 where woods have been burned for that end, and the afhes left as 

 manure: They likewife fow vcerling or fpring-rye, and great quan- 

 tities of both are ufed in Sondenfield, fince the arrival there in 1624 

 of fome Rye-finlanders, as they were called; for thefe inftruded 

 the peafants in this method of converting their woods to arable 

 ufes, and manuring the land with the afhes. However profitable 

 this may be, where the woods will bear fuch a confumption, yet 

 it is detrimental and prohibited in other parts. The apparatus or 

 method of proceeding is as follows. A peafant having found out 

 a fpot, which will anfwer to the fowing of half, or a whole tun 

 of feed, he fells the wood, and leaves it on the ground two years, 

 till it be throughly dried. When he propofes to fet fire to it, 

 which is generally about midfummer, he waits till he obferves 

 clouds, which promife him rain, his fuccefs in this cafe, de- 

 pending thereon. Yet it frequently happens, that many are the 

 dupes of a weatherwife neighbour's conjectures, for one has no 

 fooner fet fire to his wood, than another, relying on his judgment, 

 does the like, and fo on, that fometimes the flames and fmoak of 

 thefe fires are feen at once throughout a whole country. The 

 wood being burned as much as poffible, the greater pieces quench- 

 ed, and the lefler, together with the furface of the foil, the mofs, 

 and fmall roots being reduced to afhes, without flaying till the 



earth 



