188 Report on the Agriculture of Sweden and Nqriray. 
Barley. — This crop succeeds either oats or turnips in the 
greater portion of Sweden and Norway ; but in some favoured 
<listricts it is taken after sugar-beet. Barley-sowing follows the 
oat seed-time ; and the land is prepared very much as that for 
oats after a previous corn-crop. Many good farmers, however, 
who take barley between two crops of oats, give a dressing of 
farmyard-manure to their barley-land. In that case the manure 
iy carted on to the land early in spring, to the amount of 10 to 
15 tons per imperial acre, and is either ploughed or harrowed 
in according to the strength of the land. The barley is sown, 
generally about the beginning to the middle of May, except in 
Scane, where it is got in by the middle of April. Four bushels 
of seed per acre, generally of the six-row variety, is not an 
unusual quantitv ; and the average quantity of seed used for 
ail kinds of spring-corn in the years 1865—72 inclusive, ac- 
cording to the official returns, is no less than 4^ bushels per 
imperial acre. The crop varies very much according to cir- 
cumstances, being largest after sugar-beet ; for a very good 
farmer it may be put down at 36 to 40 bushels per acre, but 
rising to as much as 50 under very favourable circumstances. 
The official average crop of spring-corn for the whole kingdom 
of Sweden in the years 1865-72 inclusive, is 23'8 bushels per 
imperial acre ; and the extent of land sown is, on the average of 
the six years ending with 1872, as much as 1,979,198 acres. 
When barley is taken after turnips or beetroot the land re- 
<|uires no preparation in the autumn, and in the spring it is 
merely harrowed or " sladded, ' sown, and the seed harrowed in. 
The assertion that the crop after beetroot is so superior to that 
after any other crop may be accepted as the truth without much 
question, on account of the comparatively heavy manuring, and 
the careful cultivation which the land receives in preparation 
for that crop, as well as the careful cleaning during its growth. 
Drilling spring-corn is not generally liked in Sweden. The 
time of spring-sowing is also a matter on which differences of 
opinion prevail, and my notes contain records of practice varying 
from the middle of April in Scjuic, to as late as the beginning of 
June on Mr. Swartz's farm not far from Wadstena. When I saw 
this farm in the middle of September, the late-sown six-row 
barley was still green, but giving the promise of a very heavy- 
return if it could be safely housed ; and 1 have every reason to 
believe that the exceptionally dry autumn which prevailed in 
Sweden this year brought this risky speculation to a successful 
issue. It seemed more hazardous than its avowed object — the 
reduction of annual weeds — would warrant. 
Turnipa. — A root-course is comparatively rare in the rotations 
pursued on Swedish and Norwegian farms, although a certain 
