Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Second part - VI. Agriculture and Cattle-Breeding - 1. Agriculture. Partly after information from P. Lundell, Ebbetorp, Member of the Riksdag
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
514
VI. AGRICULTURE AND CATTLE-BREEDING OF SWEDEN.
A) Until about 1870 the production of cereals was the chief concern.
This was furthered by an easier access than formerly to capital, and
the consequent reclaiming of waste grounds as a result of the high
prices of corn, especially during and after the Crimean war, and the
lucrative export of oats to England (prices being 30 % higher than for
the present), and was made possible by the employment of better
machinery which rendered more accessible the nutritive substances of
the soil; by means of better draining, which has the same result;
and, in the southern part of the country, by means of marling, which
indeed gave the soil a certain quantity of nutritive substances but
became still more effective by means of dissolving and bringing into
use the mould-elements of the earth; finally, in an essential degree, by
the consequences of the »re-parceling» previously mentioned, which took
place chiefly during the period 1830/55. Towards the decade 1861/70 much
energy was shown too, in the export of fattened cattle to England.
B) From the decade 1871/80, Swedish agriculture entered in a
short time upon a new face. More weight began to be generally laid
upon manuring on a large scale, by means both of artificial manures
and by a transition to oattle-rearing and, in connection therewith, such
employment of its products that the nutritive materials of plants taken
from the soil were returned to it in the form of manure. When it was
soon found that cattle-rearing in union with dairy-farming could be
directly more lucrative than the growing of cereals, the number of cattle
was more and more increased, as well as was the feed and the use of
artificial fertilizers, the result of which was the export of butter and meat
The export of butter has continually increased (till some few years back),
while that of meat has now declined. The external cause of this is that
the export of pigs and cattle, first to England and then to Germany, has
been rendered almost impossible by the prohibition of the import, and by
severe legal enactments. — Facilitated communication and the
competition of distant countries which has thus become possible in the market
of cereals, and the depression in the price of cereals, have afterwards
further contributed to the restriction of the export of these products.
The price of land has, as a rule (except in Skåne), accommodated
itself to the price of cereals. Thus, in 1853/56, it rose greatly, but
afterwards remained almost stationary until the commencement of the
seventies when, for some years, a great but brief increase took place; it
remained afterwards unchanged until the beginning of the decade 1881/90,
but then made a decided decline until 1890 à 1893, after which an
unimportant rise was noticeable. At present it is considerably lower than in
the middle of the seventies. The fall in the price of land was greater in
the upper, corn-producing part of Sweden than in Skåne, which produces
milk, butter, and beets on a large scale. The transition from free-trade
to protection (in 1888) was, in Sweden as in many other countries, a
result of the fall in the price of cereals in the markets of the world.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
