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into compact farms, was decided upon in 1750, a time
when philanthropists all over Europe were working for
the good of their kind. The work has, however, only
recently been finished, and as late as 1848 some
parishes in the east had enormous tracts of forests not
only undivided among separate proprietors, but held
in common by several villages and parishes. The
work was, of course, imperfectly done at first, so that
much had to be done over again and much to be
entirely changed. Now, however, the farms have been
more conveniently arranged, a number of farmhouses
have been moved out from the villages, and the whole
work of enclosure is being satisfactorily accomplished.
In old days the Kings of Sweden maintained a
claim not only to the so-called Upsala Öden, but to all
waste lands. Later on many of them (notably King
Eric of Pomerania in the days of the Scandinavian
Union, and other powerful rulers who were chiefly
concerned about the State treasury and their private
purse) enforced the right of any settler to take
unoccupied land, the villagers who had rights in the
woods not being permitted to hinder him. Gustavus
Vasa declared that “waste lands belong to God, the
Crown of Sweden, and the King.” Charles IX. required
the cottiers or torp-holders, the smaller settlers on
this waste land, to pay rent to the Crown, and not to
the bönder or peasant proprietors of the village.
To-day the Crown lands have been separated from
those of the peasants, the Crown retaining for the
most part the big forests of the north where there are
no villages, and also what is left over after the
enclosure and distribution of the commons among the
peasants. According to laws of the eighteenth century,
750 to 1500 acres (in some parts 2000 acres) are
considered to be the proper maximum for each peasant.
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