Report on the Agriculture of Sweden and Norway. 169 
northern portion of this peninsula is the narrow and mountaiii- 
ous country of Norway, while Sweden forms the lar<rer and less 
elevated eastern and southern diyision. Though both countries 
are under the same Soyereign, each has its own executive 
government, legislative assemblies, and fiscal arrangements. In 
fact, the two nations are essentially distinct and foreign to each 
' other. They speak different languages, and use not only different 
weights, measures, and money, but even different thermometers. 
In contour and climate they also present remarkable diversities, 
for while more than one-half of INorway has an elevation 
j exceeding 2000 feet, only one-twelfth part of Sweden attains 
that height above the sea. One-third of Sweden has an eleva- 
tion of less than 300 feet ; and a second third lies between that 
plane and one of 800 feet. The two countries are divided by 
a table-topped mountain-chain, called the Kolen, which from 
Trondhjem northwards forms nearly the whole of the northern 
part of Norway. Southwards that country expands into a huge 
lobe of mountainous land, 40 per cent, of the surface of which 
was calculated by the late Professor Forbes to exceed 3000 feet 
in height. The chief physical characteristics of Norway are its 
fjelds, fjords, and forests. The forests clothe the sides of the hills 
and of the fjords, or firths, if not to their summit, at any rate to 
the greatest elevation that the climate will permit ; and the fjelds 
are the elevated and generally barren table-lands, which, with 
isolated higher peaks, form the high ground of the country. 
Thus the area devoted to agriculture is comparatively small, 
and very much scattered, consisting generally of the soles of the 
valleys and the strips of land at the sides of the fjords. 
In Sweden, on the other hand, more than one-eighth of the 
surface is occupied by lakes, and almost as large an area is 
devoted to agriculture. This latter portion is nearly equally 
divided between natural grass, chiefly in the north, and various, 
other crops ; but, as will be seen presently, a very large area of 
grass is also under rotation. In the north of Sweden most of 
the surface is occupied by forests or is waste land, and thus the 
remaining three-fourths of the acreage of the country is accounted 
for. In those northern regions the cultivated land is also very 
much divided ; but in the more southern provinces, such as 
Scune, and East and West Gotland, especially around Lake 
Wettern, there are large cultivated plains with fewer boulders 
than on the waste lands which abound farther north. Those 
southern districts offer so fine a field for the employment of 
steam in the cultivation of the land, that it is most surprising 
to find the example of Mr. Axel Dickson, of Kyleberg, near 
Wadstena, who bought one of Howard's sets of roundabout 
steam-tackle seven years ago, still without a single follower. 
