Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Second part - VI. Agriculture and Cattle-Breeding - 5. Agricultural Labourers. By Captain U. von Feilitzen, Löfvingsborg - 6. Agricultural Legislation. By Judge C. Th. af Ekenstam, Visby, Member of the Riksdag
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AGRICULTURAL LEGISLATION.
615
By »craftsmen» is here meant under-stewards, gardeners, coachmen, cow-house
foremen, farm-joiners, smiths, etc., who usually go through a professional course
before they take service. — As may be seen above, the tenement-labourers
are comparatively the least favoured. Those placed in the best circumstances,
again, apart from the craftsmen, are the crofters, a fact which naturally shows
that the crofter-system is the best way of paying the agricultural labourers. To
render possible a future development of this system, new legislation is required,
however, which shall render the crofter more secure than hitherto in the
enjoyment of the fruits of the labour which he expends upon the improvement of his
little plot of ground.
Annual reports are found respecting the wages of the agricultural
labourers of our country — pretty rough figures, though, — in the
official statistics of agriculture. A view of these figures is given in
Table 84. A considerable increase may thus be seen to have taken place
of låte years — characteristically enough, somewhat greater in the case
of the women than in that of the men. — The map on page 613 shows
the varying wages paid for agricultural labour in different parts of
the country. We find that the highest wages are in general paid in
Northern Sweden as well as in the island of Gotland and in Skåne.
6. AGRICULTURAL LEGISLATION.
The origin of the Agricultural Legislation still in force may be
sought in the Middle Ages. All the land in Sweden was not, however,
equally affected by the enactments concerning it. Tor the lands (»Frälse»)
which had come to be exempted from certain taxes, and which still up
to April 6, 1810, could only be owned by the Nobility, were but to a
very small extent affected by them. It was other private lands and also
crown farms that this legislation, collected in the Building code of the
Law of 1734, especially concerned. As long ago, however, as 1789, by
a decree of Gustavus HE, issued on February 21 of that year, it was
declared that land-owners who were not of the Nobility had the same
rights over their farms as the Nobility over theirs; and herewith a
great part of the agricultural legislation which till then had been in
force with regard to that land, ceased to be applicable to it.
The ordinance regulating the manner in which a village shall be established
is very ancient; it may still be said to remain in force, although in our days
the applicable cases are very few. The site for the village was first to be settled;
greater shares in the village entitled to larger building plots; and the plots should
be arranged east and west, north and south. In the distribution of the land of
the village it was not the position in regard to the plots that decided the
question, but especially that everyone got his parcel as well in the better as in the
worse. Plots were to be built upon with farmhouses and barns and any other
buildings that might he considered necessary, but in other respects everyone was
allowed to build more and larger houses if he so needed. Roads and ditches for
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