Report on the Agriculture of Sweden and Norway. 179 
Space does not permit me to describe at any length the 
history of agriculture in Sweden and Norway, so I content 
myself with the following translation of a brief sketch which 
refers to Sweden, and which was published in the introduction 
to the official catalogue of Swedish Exhibits at the Vienna 
Universal Exhibition. I believe it was drawn up by my good 
friend Professor Arrhenius. " The oldest system of farming in 
Sweden is the hurning-system, in which the forest is cut down 
and set on fire, the land is enclosed, and sown with rye. This 
system of corn-growing is now only to be seen at a few 
localities in Wermland and some other forest districts ; but 
over the rest of the country it has been abandoned. To it 
succeeded the hoe-system, in which the land was worked with 
a hoe, and the stones were collected into larger or smaller heaps. 
The land broken up in this manner was sown every year, so 
long as it would grow corn, and then it was again given over 
to Nature. The result was the reconversion of the arable land 
into forest, and in such localities the stone-heaps and remnants 
of ditches, which are the characteristic signs of this system of 
agriculture, are everywhere met with. 
"In the northern provinces the arable land is, in many places, 
still cropped on the one-field system, that is to say, it is sown 
annually with summer-corn, potatoes, or flax ; and when it will 
no longer pay to do this, it is- allowed to be in grass. By 
degrees it becomes converted into grass-land, which is then used 
partly as pasture and partly as meadow. When it has been in 
grass a number of years, and thereby accumulated a new store of 
vegetable matter, and restored its fertility', it is again broken up, 
and for some time used as arable land, when it is once more 
left to cover itself with herbage. 
" This system, the most primitive of all, now occurs only 
in the most northern regions (Norrland), where, however, as 
in the remaining part of the country, the farming is now for 
the most part carried on as a two-field or a three-field system, 
and in various localities under differently arranged systems of 
rotation and of ' twin-culture' [Koppelwirthschaft*). 
" The two-field system f is most general in Uppland, Westman- 
land, and Sodermanland, or in the farmed land surrounding the 
Malar Lake. The three-field system J occurs mostly in East and 
West Gotland, in Nerike, on Oland and Gotland, as well as 
* This woi d may be rendered literally " cultivation of enclosed land " as well as 
" twin " or " double ' culture ; but the term " twin-culture " best conveys its 
meaning, which is, that about half the arable land shall be in corn and the rest 
in artificial grass. 
t Com and fallow alternately. t Wintcr-com, spring-corn, and fallow, 
N 2 
