The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

1-18 SCANDINAVIA.by regular parcellings amongst the communal body for a term of years, eachparcel being allotted successively to all the associates. Elsewhere the land wasdivided unequally, in virtue of usages and traditions that bad acquired theforce of law. Most of the forests were sbared out according to the different speciesof trees, one receiving the pines, another the firs, another the birches, while afourth took the grass, and a fifth the soil itself. Now the Norwegian law forbidsthe division of the forest between two proprietors, who, being owners, one oftbe soil, the other of tbe trees, would necessarily fall out. In other respectscommon tenure was continually curtailed to the benefit of private holders.Nevertheless nearly one-seventh part of Norway was still common land in 1876,and even in the western provinces, between the Naze and Trondhj em-fiord, theselands occupied on an average three-tenths of the country.The Norwegian proprietors have preserved the old odelsret, or " allodial " rightof holding lands put up to sale free of rent. But the amount to be paid isfixed not by the upset price, but according to a fresh valuation. The allodialright, however, attaches only to families that have held land for at leasttwenty years, and is forfeited unless claimed within three years after theproperty has changed hands. The inheritance, formerly different for themale and female issue, is now equalised for both sexes, and the testatorcannot dispose of more than one-fourth of the estate over tbe heads of his directissue. «In consequence of this last legal disposition the land became very much cutup. Apart from small patches situated in the towns, and useless except togrow vegetables and flowers about the houses, landed estates properly so callednumber about 430,000 in all Scandinavia ; that is, 300,000 in Sweden, 130,000 inNorway.There would be a natural tendency amongst the people to increase thenumber of lots indefinitely, each peasant desiring to become his own master, andpossess his marital (literally "man-toll") of land. But the law has intervened toprevent this ruinous parcelling of the country.In Sweden all further distributionis forbidden when the allotment becomes insufficient for the support of ahousehold of at least three members.Since 1827 another law, afterwards adoptedin Germany and Austria-Hungary, allowed the owner of several lots to demand afresh distribution, with a view to consolidating all the scattered plots. Estateshave thus become rounded off, to the great advantage of agriculture. They are, asa rule, not very extensive, and Scandinavia has no such domains as many in GreatBritain and Ireland, which are veritable provinces, except indeed in the remoteregion of Norrland, where the Goteborg merchant Dickson could traverse hisestates for days without reaching their limits.The tenant farmers, less numerous than the proprietors, are nearly all protectedby long leases, but the so-called busman or torpare class do not pay theirrent in money, but by manual labour on tbe owner's lands, or by services in themines and forests. Amongst them are some at once owners and tenants, whilemany are compelled by their precarious tenure to seek for subsidiary means ofexistence, becoming artisans, woodmen, or fishers.