The Nome daily nugget., 1936-01-17

Prepared by the National Geographic Society.
 Washington. D. C.-wNu Service. WIDEN is still land Of cas-
 ties, although the owners or o many large estates have felt the
 effect of world depression and nave been forced to curtail sharply heir living expenses. Yet modern housing" has made few inroads, ex- ,ept in the large cities; and the coun' try gentlefolk, as rule, adhere close " to quaint traditions of homeliness inherited from their ancestors.
 It is not so easy to know the Swedes we'll, especially the dwellers in the country, who for the most part stay It home on their property. Foreigners are often led to think that they are stiff and reserved. sometimes little sullen or even naughty. But this should be interpreted rather as sign of their northern shyness.
 They are in reality full of fun and of warm feelings; but when it Is question of showing the latter, their shrinking from impulsive gestures and emotional or grandiloquent language is both comic and touching.
 This is one aspect in which the rela- tionship with the English is most clear ly visible.
 Certainly the letters are loosened somewhat when they are in festive mood and have drunk little wine. But 1t Is not then that one gets closest to them. To know and value them fully, one must observe them within their own four walls. in their daily life and activities. Only fin intimacy. free from alien. disturbing clements. does their charming individuality come to full towering Swedish home life is a cult and a culture unlike anything else, the product of centuries of ten der polishing and refining. And mo- where has 1t attained such perfection as in the old country houses.
 Bia Landowners Suffer.
 If the situation is serious for nearly everyone nowadays, 1t is often catas- trophic for the great landowners and territorial magnates. Not month passes but some of them have to leave home and property.
 And where they stick to their old es- tates despite all their difficulties, they often do so less for their own sake. but more in order not to abandon their retainers to unemployment. In the case of entailed estates there are of course no bankruptcies and forced sales, but 1t is not much more pleas ant to be placed under the manage ment of banks and creditors.
 For Swedish agriculture can no long CT pay Its way There is the same con- lict between agriculture and indus try as in most other countries; and 1t looks as if the former were getting the worst of it.
 A series of relief schemes has been started to try to aid agriculture in Sweden, as elsewhere. But there has been no visible result thus far. An intensive educational campaign has been set on foOt state advisers and controllers have been provided for ev- cry branch of forestry and agriculture
 Most of the medieval castles in Sweden are situated on heights sur rounded by water or in otherwise in- accessible places. Such placement, needless 10 say. was not due to any considerations for natural beauty, but because it afforded the most advan- tageOus defense.
 For these strong stone houses had developed direct from the prehistoric Notifications whose foundations are still found here and there.
 Fortresses Mads Into Dwellings.
 When Sweden, In the Sixteenth cen tury. ceased to be disturbed by civil war, the gloomy and inhospitable for tresses were gradually converted into dwelling houses As time passed these grew more and more comfortable. and esthetic considerations became more decisive. Many of the most beautiful castles in Sweden date from this in teresting transition period. From the beginning of the Seventeenth century | Sweden was great power, and re- mained one till Charles KITS unlucky campaigns impoverished the country and put an end to its domination In the Baltic.
 Among the medieval Swedish castles touching the early Renaissance style, Skarhnlt, Vittskovle, and TOrup are | the most characteristic and best pre-