St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1895-04-27
TRAPPING SALMON in NORWAY.
% Peasant FaFmers Eke Out . Hard Sab
sistence from the Florida.

The Peasant Farmers Eke Out Hard Sab
sistence from the Fjorsis.
There is q very singular way of trap
ping salmon on the Norwegian fjOrds.
Here and there, as you pass along those
great, magnificent Hords, which cut
deep into the heart of Norway. you
may see a solitary figure pcrchcd upon
n sort of spidery, fragile-looking tim
Der lookout, ovcrhanging the ford. A
week later, or a month, rs you pass
again, yon may sec that lonely figure.
his eyes always bent upon the ford
beneath him, still keeping his watch.
The man is a salmon catcher; in his
hands are u couple of long ropes, con-
nccted with q net in the water below
him, and day after day he sits up there
intently watching until he sees SAL
mon pass into bic net. The ins tant
this great even. happens he hauls
sharply upon the ropes, closes the
mouth of the net, and then. getting
into his boat, proceeds to pick up the
salmon at his leisure.
The salmon thus caught are sold to
some hotel upon the ford, or sent with
others in ice to Bergen by the next
steamer. The fisherman gets from
three pence to SIX pence per pound for
his catch-four pence is an average
pricc-and even the hard-earned cap
ture of three or four salmon . week.
procured at the expense of long. weary
days of watching. means a good deal
to these poor peasant farmers with
whom ready money is n scarce COM
modify.
The Norwegian peasant farmer is a
poor man indeed, or he would not
beake himself to SO precarious and so
monotcnous a method of adding to MIS-
scanty means Usually he has a small
patch of land, few acres only-a
mere garden spot-where q little soil
lies at the foot of the rocky mountains
that inclose the ford, or (where the
soil is always the richest). upon some
old mOraine or in some open valley
formed by GLACIERS in ages of the past.
Here he sows and reaps his tiny crops,
and cuts his grass in August. making
hay Of it by hanging it upon tall hur-
dies His few cows and goats are in
the byres during the long winter
-half-starved, poor crcatures!-and
fed. more often than not, upon
dried boughs of the abundant
birch tree. In June the little flocks
and herds emerge and are driven up to
the Saeters mountain pasturcs). where
the girls Of the tiny hamlet settle down
in rude huts quite alone, make cheeses
and live an idyllic, pastoral life until
September. The farmer always makes
his own bOats-yOu can buy in Norway
good. roomy, pine-built boat for
thirty five shillings, or two pounds
and is as much fisherman and boat
man as farmer, as, indeed, are all his
family.
The farmers eat little or no meat;
foatbrod Ia sort of very inferior. coarse
oatcake. made of grain and potatoes).
milk, cheese and fish suffice for the
Norwegian and his family throughout
the year. The catching of . few SAL
mon each week, therefore, during the
summer is matter of much Importance
to the poorer of the peasant proprie-
tors Of this picturesque but excessively
barren country. Norway, indeed, is
nothing but . country of great noun
tains, pierced by the vast scawstef
fjords, and one exhibiting few scanty
patches of good land Its natives, pc,-
haps the hardest, simplest, kindliest
and most honest folk now in EurOp..
fare hard, indeed, and their wants Al
few and scantv.-Pall Mall Gazette