260 Meport on t/ie Agriculture of Sweden and Norioay. 
business. One of the keenest farmers whom I met in Norway 
calculated that his farm-profits had been in the last two years 
9a\ and 13s. 6c?. per acre respectively ; and we have already 
seen that the profits at Enskede for the three years 1865-68 did 
not average more than 5s. 6fZ. per acre. If the most enlightened 
men cannot make farming pay better than this, it is tolerably 
clear that the uninstructed peasant cannot obtain an equivalent 
for his labour, and for the rent-value of his farm. But as he 
has no rent-day to provide for, he does not realise this fact, 
and never thinks of asking himself whether his small profits 
repay him for the labour which he gives as rent, if his land is 
" torp," or are adequate interest for the capital sunk in the live 
and dead stock of the farm, and in tlae farm itself, if it is his 
own property. 
I may be wrong, but it repeatedly struck me that as grass 
cannot grow in Sweden for more than five or six months in the 
year as a maximum, it must be relatively an unprofitable crop, 
although the necessity of a large area, under the prevailing 
system of dairy-husbandry, nobody can doubt. But this is one 
reason why dairy-husbandry is, as I understand it, unprofitable 
in Sweden and Norway, except under peculiar circumstances. 
The prevalence of dairying also explains the almost universal 
practice of applying phosphatic manures to the corn-crops, when, 
that is to say, any artificial manure is used. Farmyard-manure 
is applied to fallow in preparation for rye ; then the land is laid 
out in seeds for at least three years, all mown, and given to 
dairy-cows in the houses, — this is the national system, and it 
must rob the seed-land of its phosphates. The best farmers, 
therefore, seek to restore the condition of the land by applying 
a dressing of superphosphate to the first of the two or three 
successive crops of spring-corn that follow the ley. Except at 
Alnarp and one or two other places in Sweden, the use of nitro- 
genous artificial manures appears to be entirely unknown. 
Some other prevalent practices are the result of the great 
distance of the farms from markets and centres of population 
and the difficulty and cx])ense of transport of produce. » Thus, 
the payment of the labourers to so large an extent in corn and 
other necessaries is in some districts an immense advantage to 
them. Similarly, many farmers cannot afford the expense of 
artificial feeding-stuffs, sucli as oil-cake, and therefore utilise 
their home-grown corn. Nevertheless, the table of imports for 
the five years ending with 1873 shows that the Swedish farmer 
is fully alive to the value of such materials as guano and oil- 
cakes, and that as the opening of new railways brings such 
aids to advanced agriculture witliin his reach he is not slow 
to avail himself of them. Until the last few years Swedish 
