. The encyclopædia of geography: comprising a complete description of the earth, physical, statistical, civil, and political. oats, scarcely accounted as food in more favoured climates. Scandinavia is described gene-rally asTDne unbroken boundless forest, varied only in its aspect by little patches of cultivatedland. Agricultural industry till of late had not done much to remedy natural deficiencies. Ac-cording to the valuable statistical details collected by Dr. Thomson, tlie arable land in amounts to 1,818,450 English acres, which is only a sixty-second of the entire surface,or, thro
. The encyclopædia of geography: comprising a complete description of the earth, physical, statistical, civil, and political. oats, scarcely accounted as food in more favoured climates. Scandinavia is described gene-rally asTDne unbroken boundless forest, varied only in its aspect by little patches of cultivatedland. Agricultural industry till of late had not done much to remedy natural deficiencies. Ac-cording to the valuable statistical details collected by Dr. Thomson, tlie arable land in amounts to 1,818,450 English acres, which is only a sixty-second of the entire surface,or, throwing out the Norrland deserts, a thirty-second. Of this, 1,363,000 acres are returnedas under cultivation. But the average size of a Swedish farm is only twenty-seven and ahalf; the annual average of grain sown on each farm does not amount to a Winchesterbushel; and tlie annual produce of the whole country was only 5,700,000 spanns, or about71,000 quarters. Hence Sweden was obliged to import grain to a great extent; and such isthe scarcity, that the peasantry often grind the bajrk or even wood of the fir-tree into flour. Book I. SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 483 a nutriment equally scanty and unwholesome. These statements are given in 1812; sincewhicli time we find it mentioned that agriculture has made a very rapid progress; that im-proved processes have been introduced from other countries ; and that, in the most southernprovinces, a great extent of moving (and before entirely barren) sand has been rendered solid,and covered with plantations and grain. The consequence has been, that in 1827, Sweden evenexported 39,000, and, in 1828,164,000 tons of grain of every description. Every farm has a tractof forest of about 1000 acres attached to it, on which cattle are fed: these are reported asonly amounting to 403,000 horses, 1,475,000 cows, and 1,212,000 sheep. The most valua-ble product of land is formed by the vast forests with which nature has covered the whole24Q country. The trees over
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