industry in either Norway or Sweden. This may seem strange when it is
recalled that sixty per cent of the surface of Norway is occupied by
bare mountains, twenty-one per cent by woodlands, eight per cent by
grazing lands, four per cent by lakes, and two per cent by ice fields,
leaving only seven-tenths of one per cent for meadows and cultivated
fields. And yet, the products of the farm equal the combined returns
from shipping, lumber, and fisheries.

In Sweden the proportion of land under cultivation is considerably
larger, the arable lands consisting of about twelve per cent of the
total area, and in Sweden as in Norway, the agricultural products are
more than those from shipping, lumber, and fisheries combined.

Nine-tenths of the farms of Norway and Sweden are owned by small
proprietors; and although the right to dispose of landed property is
relatively free, the laws of the country favor the retention of the
farms in the families possessing them. An old allodial right makes it
possible to redeem at an appraised value a farm that has been sold.
This right is acquired after the property has belonged to the family
for twenty years, but it is lost after the farm has been in the
possession of strangers for three years. There are some farms that
have been worked for a thousand years by the descendants of the same
family. The best farms are about the banks of the lakes and in the
narrow river valleys, and there are many fertile meadows which have
never been plowed or put under cultivation, so that there are great
future possibilities for tillage. And yet these meadows furnish fine
hay-crops, and every blade of grass represents money in Scandinavia.

In a country extending through thirteen degrees of latitude, one
might naturally expect a wide range of agricultural products. In the