The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-05-22
The Norwegian Peasant Proprietor.
IRlackwnod.I

The Norwegian Peasant Proprietor.
49, lBlsckwood.f -
The Norwegian peasant proprietor,
Notwithstanding the advance and general
diffusion of agricultural knowledge of
late years, still commits contentedly al
most every agricultural sin. Of any
sort Of systematic husbandry he has but
the most elementary notion. His system
of rotation is to meadow the same land
for three or four years, without giving it
any assistance in the shape of top-dress-
ing; to break it up then for succession
of grain crops, the last of which only be
manured, 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, too,
like the small Irish tenant, always keeps
twice as much stock as he can feed prop
erly during the winter, and supplements
his fodder with birch and alder leaves,
bark of the mountaln-ash, reindeer moss,
and, along the coast, with fish-refuse.
Although an improvement is taking place
in this respect, it is still considered in
some parts of the country that if the cat
tie have not to be carried out of the
byres in the spring--if they have strength
to walk-they have been we'll wintered.
The idea is'to keep them alive only dur
ing the winter months for the butter and
cheese to be made from them in the sum-
mer; and it is astonishing how well both
COWS and sheep look at the seters in
July in spite Of this winter sulteforing,
or starving process.
There are, of course, open bitches ev-
erywhere, instead of tiled drains and un-
drained land on every farm. Machinery
and artificial manures are but little used
and it is only very gradually that i'm
proved agricultural implements are TAX
ing the place of the former primitive
homemade utensils. So backward, in
fact, is agriculture generally in the coun-
try, SO poor return does it produce
from the soil, and so much is the want
apparent of enlightened supervision and
example to counteract the mental and
physical sluggishness of the people, and
their want of capital and knowledge that
the State has been obliged to step in and
to take upon itself the functions of a
resident landlord. In addition, there
fore, to an agricultural college, it has in
stituted, or subsidies, local sem
inaries and local agricultural
shows; sends practiced agriculturists
through the country to dissemi-
nate, at all events, theoretical knowl
edge; and in conjunction with nation
al society introduces better, but often
unsuitable, breeds Of stock. 1t has also
imported people from Switzerland to
show how, in a similarly mountainous
country, cheese of some value as an
article of export may be produced. The
State also-as there is attached to most
farms in Norway more or less extensive
stretch of wood, and as a total ignorance
of forestry is among the Norwegian peas
ant proprietor's deiciencies--buys up
wherever it can tracts of forest, to set an
example of less wasteful treatment; it
makes, or contributes to the making OF
all roads, and in fact, does everything,
and is expected to do everything, which
is done by our landed proprietors for the
enlightenment or development Of their
several neighborhoods or counties.