Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-09-12

cotton imported from the United States.
The Firms like our pork. They smoke our
tobacco and they light their homes with
American petroleum. They are importing
our farm machinery, especially reapers and
mowers, and now and then a thresher.
Some of the farmers here have steam ploWS
and there is one who has an electric thresh-
ing machine
Farming and numbering are among the
chief businesses of Finland and farming
leads. Only about one-third of the coun-
try is cultivated, and the land does not
compare with ours in fertility. Neverthe-
less it. Is well handled and the farmers
make money.
The average farm is small There are
altogether about lis, coo farms in addition
to I2.UG0 small holdings.
Much of the land is farmed by tenants
and of late years some by syndicates of
peasant farmers who combine together.
The Jokkis Joint Stock Company, for in
stance, owns 10000 acres, and it has half
of this under cultivation. 1t uses the best
of modern machinery, and has twelve miles
OF railroad on it's estate. Such companies
would make fine customers for American
farm tools.
How the Firms Make Butter.
Much of the land here is devoted to stock
raising and dairying. There some
thing like a million sheep, 10000 horses
and 100000 reindeer in Finland
There are a million and a half cattle,
and among them some of the finest milk
ers on earth. Some of the Finnish COWS
give over 5000 pounds of milk each per
year, and from seventeen to twenty pounds
of this milk will make a pound of butter.
The butter is excellent, and it is in great
demand throughout northern Europe Much
of it is put up in cans and shipped all
over the world
great deal IS made at creameries, and
there is one man who has established a
creamery and buys his cream half frozen
His works are at the port of Hango, and
the peasants for miles around freeze their
cream into a soft mass and thus ship 1t in
bulk. This reduces the freight rate, and
they say it does not hurt the cream. Fin
lands exports of butter now amount to
100000 a year.
The best of the Finnish farms are in
the southern part of the country. Here
you find good houses of two stories painted
red with white window frames. Nearly
house for his guests, and the better farm
ers have four or five horses and twenty
or thirty cows. Some have American reap
ers and mowers, and not few have steam
engines. In some places the houses are
grouped together in villages, and in others
they are scattered over the farms.
Among the Poor People.
,
and in some parts very poor. In times
past when the crops failed they lived upon
bread made of pine bark and chopped
straw. Now they use rye bread sour milk
and salt fish. In many families the bread
is only baked twice or thrice a year. The
diet is such that it causes catarrh of the
stomach and in some parts of the coun-
try nearly every other man or woman IS
"a dyspeptic
There is one thing, however, in which the
Firms surpass any people Of Europe.
refer to cleanliness. Every family has it's
own bath house, and the bath house is
often built before the dwelling is built 1t
usually consists of a large room with a
ledge we'll up under the roof. There is an
oven in the room, in which heated water is
thrown, causing an enormous amount OF
steam to pour out. The bathers lie on the
lodges and thus steam out the dirt, whip
ping themselves with birch twigs now and
then to accelerate the circulation. Every
one takes a bath Saturday night. and in
hard-Working seasons one every night
| There can be no cleanliness without per-
spiration, and a man who has not taken a
| Turkish Russian bath does not know
what it is to be clean.
| Saving the Forests.
After a century or so of wastefulness
| the Firms are beginning to save their for
| ests. They have been cutting the trees
much as we have, and millions of acres OF
| timber have been wiped out without ade
| quate return. Today there are government
| laws as to forest culturA and numbering
| A school of forestry has been established
/ some of the woodlands have been drained
| and a general interest in conserving the
| trees is manifested. The big trees of tn,
| government forests have been counted. /
| is estimated that there are more thar
! S0,0O0,ou0 trees of merchantable quality
| m a,
| twice many.
You have heard of Norwegian pines
| There are thousands of them in Finland
| although they are being rapidly cut fo]
shipbuilding and numbering. There ar,
! sawmills and planning mills in many part
of the country, and the numbering business
! is rapidly increasing. 1t might pay Ameri
| cans to look into this field for possibl,
| sales of milling machinery.
| Another product of the forests is Woo
| pulp. There are twenty-five wood pull
| mills now in operation, which make
product of about 100,00006O pounds of pull
| per year. About one-half of this Is ex
ported Thousands of tons of pasteboard
| cardboard and cheap paper are also made
about 10000, 600 pounds of paper being an
| nualiy exported.
| Work and Wages In Finland
| l am surprised to find great deal OF
| manufacturing done here Finland has
large number of wooden, linen and cotto,
mills; it has iron and engineering works
porcelain factories. glass factories ant
many wood working establishments
The wages are exceedingly low. factory
employees receiving less than SO q month
including house rent and fire wood. Womer
In the linen mills get 40 cents day, boys
80 cents and little girls % cents. In The
saw mills the hands receive about $170 q
year and in the engineering works thu
wages sometimes reach as high as 500
1t is estimated that the average Income o.
family in the country does not excee(
Tlco Such wages are for long hours. q