. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. FINLAND: POPULATION. 223 Industry is still in its infancy, four-fifths of the population being engaged exclusively in agriculture. Yet not more than the forty-fourth part of the laud has been brought under cultivation, all the rest consisting of dunes, fens, lakes, forests, or fallow tracts.* The yield of corn is inadequate to the demand, and flour is yearly imported from Russia in exchange for horses, cattle, milk, butter, cheese, fish, and game. But the staple exports are timber, tar, and resin. As in Sweden, the forests are consumed in the most
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. FINLAND: POPULATION. 223 Industry is still in its infancy, four-fifths of the population being engaged exclusively in agriculture. Yet not more than the forty-fourth part of the laud has been brought under cultivation, all the rest consisting of dunes, fens, lakes, forests, or fallow tracts.* The yield of corn is inadequate to the demand, and flour is yearly imported from Russia in exchange for horses, cattle, milk, butter, cheese, fish, and game. But the staple exports are timber, tar, and resin. As in Sweden, the forests are consumed in the most reckless manner. About half of them belon ff o to the Government, which, however, supplies less than one-fourth the quantity of timber brought to the market by private enterprise. Most of the land is owned, if not by the actual tillers, at least by the peasantry. More than half of the agriculturists are either small farmers or day labourers, but Fi"-. serfdom never existed in Swedish Finland. Several estates of the nobles, however, enjoy important privileges, and are not burdened to the same extent as those held by the peasantry. The Crown lands are mostly leased to hereditary holders, who have the right of purchasing them on conditions settled beforehand. By paying a three years' rent they become proprietors of the estates held by Finland abounds in minerals, gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, tin, and iron ; * 2-25 per cent, under tillage, 0-75 per cent, fallow, 5-7 per cent, forest, 40 per cent, water and waste. t In 1875 the land was divided amongst proprietors. The peasants owned 50,014,000 ; the Crown, 30,275,749 ; noblemen, 5,807,730 ; municipal corporations, 150,000 ; churches and monasteries, 19,520 Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Reclus, E
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade18, booksubjectgeography, bookyear1883
