198 
Agricultural Tour in 
he had converted into green hills by covering them with a sprink- 
ling of soil, while the grey sides of the higher and steeper rocks 
he had concealed by planting, wherever a crevice occurred, young 
pine-plants obtained from the neighbouring forests. In these 
crevices the roots fix themselves, and assist the gradual degrada- 
tion of the rock, from which a soil is formed ; and though the first 
or second generation does not attain a height of more than 15 or 
20 feet, yet every new race finds more support from beneath, till 
even on steep and hanging spots lofty pine-trees are finally seen 
to flourish. 
The comparative condition of agriculture in Denmark and 
Sweden offers an instructive lesson to the observing traveller. In 
the former country the capabilities of the land are in general 
better understood and more fully developed than in the latter. 
But the causes of this are obvious. In Denmark, as we have 
seen, light and sandy soils prevail ; in Sweden, five-sixths of the 
land hitherto considered capable of cultivation consist of clay. 
The former are easily worked, and at little expense ; the latter 
require greater labour, capital, and skill. Again, the climate of 
Sweden is more severe, which adds a further difficulty to the cul- 
tivation of clay-soils ; and, lastly, shut out as Sweden has hitherto 
been by its geographical position and its language from that con- 
stant intercourse with other countries which Denmark enjoys, 
knowledge has spread more slowly from abroad, and the stimulus 
to improvement has been in proportion less. Soils like those of 
Denmark prevail over much of Northern Germany, and, con- 
nected as Denmark is with the latter country by its German pro- 
vinces of Holstein and Sleswick, the improvements in German 
agriculture are more readily diffused among the general Danish 
population. 
In our own country we have occasion to regret the slow diffu- 
sion of agricultural information, and the prejudices which among 
our rural population oppose themselves to the introduction of 
important improvements in agricultural practice. But if the dif- 
fusion of knowledge be slow in our countiy, where cheap literature 
of every kind abounds, and where the demands of thirty millions 
of people, speaking the same language, are sufficient to induce 
both publishers and authors to bring out books upon almost every 
subject in regard to which information can be required, how 
much slower must it be in a country like Sweden, where a popu- 
lation of two or three millions only is to be supplied — where few 
books will pay even the cost of printing — where no scientific 
journals exist — where scarcely a magazine of light literature can 
live beyond a few short months — where the national literature is 
consequently limited — where there exists no cheap penny reading 
for the people — and where the instructed must obtain much of 
