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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...is simply a strong wire stretched from the valley to a cliff or point, five hundred to a thousand feet above, and on it bundles of hay and faggots of wood are slid down as they are wanted. The Norwegian farmer grows but little wheat. Oats and barley are sown wherever there is a likelihood of a crop being reaped. In this district potatoes are very scarce, but they are dropped in here and there, wherever a little soil is found to make it possible for them to take root. A writer in Chambers' Journal says: "In the Naerodal I noticed potatoes growing on a boulder, where a soil of about eighteen inches had gathered, or been placed. The field was a triangle whose sides were each about twelve feet in length!" The term "cornfield" is but a name, for the cereals grow among the huge boulders and rocky hillocks, and the bondher esteems it a grand find if he sometimes comes upon a piece of fiat land available for cultivation as large as an English orchard. In what are known as the agricultural districts, farming is carried on under much more favourable conditions, and a pleasant picture of a prosperous farm is given by Professor Froude. Writing of the Sogne district, he first explains how the soil has been prepared for the husbandman, and then draws a picture of a typical Norwegian farm: "The moraines, being formed of loose soil and stones deposited by ice in the glacial period, are available for cultivation, and are indeed excellent land. There were forty or fifty acres Of grass laid up for hay, a few acres of potatoes a red-roofed sunny farmhouse with large outbuildings, carts and horses moving about, poultry crowing, cattle grazing, a boathouse and platform. where a couple of lighters were unloading. Here was the...