Report on the Agriculture of Sweden and Norway. 171 
Geology. — The geology of Sweden and Norway requires very 
little description to enable their agriculture to be understood. 
The solid rocks are mostly granite or gneiss ; but other igneous 
and metamorphic rocks also occur, though they do not constitute 
large areas ; while in the province of Scane there are small 
tracts of lands belonging to the Cretaceous and Jurassic forma- 
tions. Naked rounded hills of inconsiderable elevation but 
forbidding barrenness bound the sea-coast ; and the hollows 
between them are frequently occupied with swamps and peat- 
bogs of almost equal poverty. In the cultivated tracts of country, 
the solid rocks are almost invariably covered by a greater or less 
thickness of superficial deposits,, mostly consisting of glacial clay 
or marl, generally containing boulders. In some districts these 
boulders are very numerous and of large size, when, of course, 
the land cannot be profitably cultivated ; in other districts they 
are relatively smaller and more scattered ; and in Scane, for 
instance, as already mentioned, they would not generally inter- 
fere with the use of the steam-cultivator. Near the east coast, 
north of Stockholm, as well as at Uddevalla, on the west coast, 
raised beaches occur in considerable numbers ; these, coupled 
with other evidence, have led geologists to conclude that the 
northern part of the Scandinavian region is gradually rising 
above the level of the sea, while it is gradually sinking at the 
extreme south. 
The surface deposits of the cultivated area of Sweden having 
a tolerably uniform though extraneous origin, the land does 
not exhibit those extreme diversities of composition to which 
English farmers are accustomed. Generally, the land is a more 
or less sandy loam, or a light-coloured clay possessing heavier 
staple, especially in the central districts, in the neighbourhood of 
the great lakes, Wenern and Wettern. None of the land that I saw 
could, however, be compared in stiffness with our heavy clay soils 
of Liassic, Carboniferous, or London Clay periods ; but it may be 
that the comparative lightness of the land exists more in appear- 
ance and mechanical condition than in chemical composition ; 
and there can be no doubt that some of the Swedish clays have 
a tendency to cake in dry seasons and become sticky after much 
rain. It is, also, more than possible that long-continued and 
severe frosts may in Sweden do to the land in winter some 
portion of the pulverizing that in our moister and milder climate 
has to be done by the cultivator and the harrow in spring. 
Climate. — Most writers of " Travels " in Sweden and Norway 
have found it necessary to refer to the prevailing belief in Eng- 
land that the climate of those countries is something terrible 
to contemplate ; and so late as 1853, Professor J. D. Forbes 
wrot^e as follows: — "The time can hardly be said to be gone bj 
