102 Report on the Agriculture of Sweden and Norway. 
Potatoes. — Throughout Sweden and Norway'potatoes are gene- 
rally grown ; but it is chiefly in Hedemarken, in the latter 
country, and in the southern provinces of the former, that they 
are cultivated on an extensive scale for the manufacture of spirit. 
In round numbers, 350,000 acres were planted in Sweden in the 
year 1872, and the crop amounted to 45,000,000 bushels, or 130 
bushels per acre. Taking the bushel to weigh about half a 
hundredweight, this would give an average production of 3 tons 
5 cwt. per imperial acre. By Table VII., p. 183, it may be seen 
that the average quantity of land under potatoes during the six 
years included in it was 331,776 acres, and that the cultivation of 
the tuber has during that period been progressively extending. 
According to the official returns, the average crop for the eight 
years ending with 1872, was 116*9 bushels per imperial acre. 
The cultivation of the land is the same as for roots, and the 
potatoes are planted from the end of April until the third week 
in May. The crop is chiefly harvested by women, who work in 
gangs, numbering in some cases twenty or thirty people. The 
women receive l^d. to 8J. per day, and as many potatoes as they 
can eat, and the overseer about Is. %d. per day. These long 
rows of women, on their knees, getting the potato-harvest with 
their fingers as much as with their hoes, and superintended by a 
man, who walks to and fro keeping them at it, seemed to me the 
most disagreeable examples of agricultural labour to be found in 
Sweden, and especially in the province of Scane. 
Pulse. — On an average, according to the official returns, about 
130,000 acres of pulse-crops are grown in Sweden every year. 
A proportion of this area doubtless consists of tares grown on the 
fallow-course preceding winter-corn ; and the greater portion 
of the remainder is taken after ley-oats on a part of the course, 
in place either of barley or a second crop of oats. The cultiva- 
tion of the land in the first instance has been already described 
under the head of bare fallow ; and in the second case it would 
be the same as for barley. The official returns for Sweden 
further give the average amount of seed used as 3^ bushels per 
acre, and the average crop as 16*3 bushels. ^ 
Tobacco. — This crop is cultivated in the neighbourhood of 
Stockholm and other large towns, from which plenty of manure 
and occasional labour can be obtained. The total amount of 
the crop throughout the kingdom has not been published, but I 
have seen as much as 10 acres of tobacco on one farm in the 
south, and the quantity grown near Stockholm alone has been 
stated at more than 200 tons per annum. As a rule it is grown 
year after year on the same land, which is very heavily dressed 
with town-manure and guano. 
