Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - II. The Agricultural Classes
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peasant proprietors. In some cases the companies
cultivate farms on their own account, the Jokkis
Joint-stock Company, for instance, which owns some 70,000
acres, half of which is land under cultivation and only
a minor part of which is let. Companies of this
description have sufficient capital to take advantage
of all the newest improvements, but this one has been
especially enterprising, as it has built a 20-kilometre
railway, and established several thriving industries on
its property. It is by these industries and not by
farming that the company is making money.
It is not only in England that the system of letting
large farms prevails. This is the case in a minor
degree in other countries with a social system more
like that of Finland; in Denmark, for instance, where
many large farms are in the hands of tenant farmers
with thorough technical knowledge of their business.
In Finland this is seldom the case, less frequently even
than in Prussia. Perhaps technical agricultural
education is neglected. More probably it is the interest of
the owners to keep the estates in their own hands in
countries such as Finland, where, as a rule, there is
more than one kind of business, forestry as well as
agriculture, and many other forms of paying industry.
Besides this, there are many “boställen” or Crown
lands, large or medium-sized farms which are let on
a carefully-drawn lease for periods of twenty-five years.
Many of these properties have belonged to the Crown
from ancient times, and many of them were subject
to a rather arbitrary proceeding known in Finnish
history as “the reduction,” by which, in 1680, lands
granted by former kings to the nobles were taken
back by the Crown. In recent times most of these
farms, 800 in number, were made over to the officers
of the army; the whole army, officers as well as
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