The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-06-17
The Norwegian Peasant Proprietor.

The Norwegian peasant proprietor,
notwithstanding the advance aid gen
eral diffusion of agricultural Knowledge
Of late years, still commits csntentedly
almost every agricultural sir. VI any
sort of sy systematic husbandy he has but
the most elementary notion His sys-
tenn of rotation is to meadow the same
land for three or four years, without
giving it any assistancein the shape of
top-dressing; to break it up then for
success sion of grain crops, the last of
which only will be MANFRED, and then
leave it fallow to grow grass without
seed Root crops, except potatoes, are
never grown, and the land is manured,
on an average, once only in seven or
eight years. The Norwegian peasant
proprietor like the small Irish tenant,
always keeps twice as much stock as he
can feed properly turing tho Winter,
and supplements his fodder with birch
and alder leaves, bark of the mountain
ash, reindeer moss. and, along the coast,
with fish refuse. Although an improve
ment is taking place in this respect, it is
still considered in some parts of the
country that if the cattle have not to be
carried out of the byres in the Spring
if they have strength to walk-shey
have been well wintered. The idea is
to keep them alive only during the Win
ter months for the butter and cheese to be
made from them in the Summer; and it
is astonishing how we'll both COWS and
sheep look at the smters in July, in spite
of this Winter sultefodring, or starving
process. There are, of course,
open bitches everywhere, instead of tiled
drains, and undrained land on every
farm. Machinery and artificial manures
are but little used, and it is only very
gradually that improved agricultural i'm
plements are taking the place of the
former primitive homo made utensils So
backward, in fact, is agriculture gener-
ally in the country, so poor a return
does it produce from the soil, and so
much is the want apparent of enlight-
ened supervision and example to coun-
teract the mental and physical slugginess
of the peocle, and their want of capital
and knowledge, that the State has been
obliged to step in, and to take upon it.
self the functions of resident landlord.
In addition, therefore, to an agricultural
college, it has instituted, or subsidized,
local seminaries and local agricultural
shows; sends practical agriculturists
through the country to disseminate, at
all events, theoretical knowledge; and,
in conjunction with national society,
introduces better, but often unsuitable,
breeds of stock. 1t has also imported
people from Switzerland to show how,
in similarly mountainous country, q
cheese of some value as an article Of ex-
port may be produced. The State also
Us there is attached to most farms in
Norway mere or less extensive stretch
of wood, and as total ignorance Of for
estry is among the Norwegian peasant
proprietors observation-disclosures up, wher-
ever it can, tracts of forest, to set an OK
AMPLE of less wssteful treatment it
makes, or contributes to the making Of
all roads, and, in fact, docs everything,
and is expected to do everything, which
is done by our landed proprietors for
the enlightment or development of their
several neighborhoods or counties -
Blackwood's Magazine.