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discontinued. In other cases, however, the great distances,
and the primitive economic conditions of the country,
make it desirable for both parties to agree that the rent
shall be so paid. The tenant cannot sell his spare
labour to others, and the landlord cannot easily obtain
labour elsewhere. The torp-holder or cottier usually
binds himself also to work for his landlord, occasionally
also to act as a carrier during his spare hours,
receiving payment for any work beyond what is sufficient
to pay his rent. In the case of small torps held, for
instance, by artisans who have other kinds of work,
the tenants are sometimes only obliged to give their
labour for a few days in harvest-time or hay-making
time, when labour is of exceptional value to the large
farmer. Sometimes the torp-holder has built his own
house — a fact which is, of course, considered in the
rent. In the eastern part of the country, in Carelia,
and also in the north, where the landlord has less need
of labour, the cottier sometimes pays his rent in kind,
paying one-third of the net crop of grain, or even
one-half if the owner has provided the seed. For waste
land just reclaimed, nothing is paid for the first three
years. For the right to grow crops on the “svedje” or
burnt forests, a right which is to be used for a few years
only, the tenant pays from one-quarter to one-third of
the harvest. One reason for paying rent in kind is
the lack of a regular market for grain, and the variation
in the harvests, caused especially by the frosts.
Occasionally the cottier lives too far from his landlord to
work for him. Sometimes he has the right of
hay-making, paying one day’s labour per week for each
load of hay.
The Legislature has so far interfered (or proposed to
interfere) only with the following points in the position
of torp-holders and land-bönder: (1) Contracts must
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