LAPLAND. 95 



the principal diet of the Northern peasantry, the 

 cow is even more necessary to their welfare here 

 than in England. Each settler has a few sheep, 

 and poor ragged-looking things they were. 



In the winter, the horses are worked to 

 skeletons in bringing home hay from the meadows 

 and wood from the forest; but in the summer 

 they have a jolly time of it, when they are turned 

 out to grass into the forests and on the fells, and 

 are not fetched home till autumn. They stack 

 the hay where they cut it — not in stacks, as we 

 do, but on a smaller kind of gate than that which 

 I have before described for the linseed. They 

 pile it over this when nearly green, and here it 

 dries, I believe, without ever heating, and, as the 

 top is made slanting, they say no rain can injure 

 it. I had no opportunity of proving whether it 

 retained its virtue as well in this way as in a stack 

 or barn, but I should say not ; and I consider the 

 method only as a bit of lazy-bed farming, although 

 I can hardly see what other plan they could adopt 

 here. Anyhow, it stands a very good chance 

 of being all blown away and lost in the snow 

 when the autumnal gales set in 5 and this often 

 happens. They began to cut their grass early in 

 July, and, although I left before the corn was ripe, 

 I fear if I had stayed till November I should 

 have seen it green. They told me if they could 



