The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

146 SCANDINAVIA.also yearly adds many thousands of acres to her agricultural domain by thedrainage of fiords and marshes. In all the upland valleys and inland plains ofScandinavia settlers are gradually transforming the land. Thus the province ofSmaland takes its name from the " small " squatters, who have here cleared theformer woodlands. Encroaching step by step on the wilderness of rocks andforests, the hardy pioneers covered the land with little oases, where they longremained in a state of republican isolation from the rest of the kingdom.The primitive method of clearance consisted simply of setting fire to a portionof the forest or heath, and throwing the seed into the ashes, and in some fewFi