Beport on the Agriculture of Siceden and Norway. 173 
drawn attention to the influence of light in promoting the 
growth of crops ; and his conclusion is well worth quoting. He 
observes : " It follows that the progress of vegetation in these 
high latitudes of the globe bears comparison with that of our 
regions, in the ratio of an express train to a parliamentary. In 
the north the stations do not exist, and the progress is quick 
and uninterrupted." 
These conditions will be more completely realised by English 
farmers if 1 quote the ordinary dates of a few of the most essen- 
tial agricultural operations. Throughout Sweden and Norway, 
where winter-corn can be grown, with the exception of Scane, 
rve is sown from the beginning to the middle of August, and 
wheat from the middle to the end of that month. In Scane, the 
superiority of the climate enables these operations to be per- 
formed with advantage at least a month later. Leaving that 
favoured province out of consideration, it is therefore clear that 
wheat-sowing is an operation that precedes harvesting. 
The first out-door work in the spring is generally the sowing 
of clover and grass-seeds on the autumn-sown wheat or rye. 
This is often done while the snow is still on the ground, say the 
beginning of April. As soon in April as the weather will per- 
mit, the land is prepared for spring-corn, oats being sown first 
and barley afterwards. With the exception, again, of Scane, 
these operations are usually conducted in May ; the oats being 
occasionally, and in favoured localities, got in by the end of 
April ; but in Scane spring-corn can always be sown in April, and 
the May seed-time is devoted to mangolds, turnips, and potatoes. 
It is therefore evident that, except in Scane, the field-work 
rarely commences before the middle of April, and often not until 
later. It is interrupted by the exigencies of the hay and corn 
harvest, the former in July or the beginning of August, and the 
latter in September ; but the whole of the out-door work of the 
farm must be finished before the end of October or the first 
week of November. At the outside, therefore, the Swedish and 
Norwegian farmer has but six working months ; and if he is a 
farmer and nothing more, he has the remaining six months of 
enforced idleness. But generally he is a forester as well as a 
farmer, and in winter he utilises in the forest the staff of work- 
men and horses that would otherwise be eating their heads off 
on the farm. In fact, but for this combination of foresting and 
farming, the latter would be a commercial impossibility over 
the greater portion of the Scandinavian peninsula. 
by Mr. Juhlin Dannfelt, who adds that "the surest remedy against damage by 
frost is now universally found to be to drain the marshes and low tracts of land as 
thoroughly as possible, to which important improvement a considerable grant is 
annually made by the Government." 
