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(1914) [MARC] Author: Joseph Guinchard
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iii. rural husbandry.

from certain taxes, and which, up to April 6, 1810, could only be owned
by the Nobility (not taking here the Church as landowner into
consideration), were but to a very small extent affected by them. It was
other private tax-lands and also Crown farms that this legislation,
collected in the Building Law of the Code of 1734, especially concerned. As
long ago, however, as 1789, by a decree of Gustavus III, issued on
February 21 of that year, it was declared that ’’all tax-paying landowners
(Sw. skattemän), have the same rights over their farms, both the infield
and outfield land, which have been fixed by legal surveys and boundaries,
with woods and fields and fishing, shooting and trapping appertaining
thereto, as unalterably and with as free right of disposal as the Nobility
over their fee-farms", 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 be said still to remain in force, as far as it can be
applicable. 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 t
and west, north and south. In distributing the village land it was not the
position of the plots that decided matters, but everyone had to get a share in the
better land as well as in the worse. Plots had to be provided with farmhouses
and barns and some other buildings that were enumerated as necessary, but, in
other respects, everyone was allowed to build more and larger houses if he so
needed. Roads and ditches for drainage were to be taken from undistributed
land; and if any one wished to fence round his private land, within the limits
of the village, he was at liberty to do so, provided only that others did not
suffer damage from it. Where one village met another, the obligation of fencing
was, else, to be shared between them. The land which a peasant thus occupied,
he was to carefully till and manure; he should clear and keep the meadows in
condition, and he should bring other land under cultivation, as far as he could
do so without harm to forests or pasture-land — all under penalty of fines for
neglecting these duties. Forests and pasture-lands were, in general, common
to-all the villagers, who might use them as much as they needed for grazing,
firewood, or timber, turf, or other things, but not for purposes of sale, nor for use
outside the limits of the village.

Amongst other details contained in the Building Law, which have now
for the most part lost their importance, we must not, however, omit to speak
of the enactments about burning’ woodland (Sw. svedjande), which are interesting,,
not only from a juridical point of view, but also from that of cultural history.
In the extensive tracts of country where the inhabitants were still few and
the-supply of forest-land ample, the peasants were wont, without regard to the future,
to "singe", or burn, the woodland, that is, to allow fire to pass over a tract of’
forest, so as to be able afterwards to sow lye in the ashes for two or three
years in succession. As, however, such a burning of woodland rendered the
tract of forest for a very long time unproductive, both with regard to the
re-growth of the timber and partly also as regarded pasturage, it was decreed that,
for such burning of woodland, permission must be asked both of the
co-proprietors in the village and of certain public authorities.

As it was sought, in this and other ways, to fix by law the duties of
the-peasant, it was necessary, too, to arrange for some control to ensure the
observance of the ordinances. This was to be obtained by inspection, a charge to b&

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