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The old rotation of crops in Finland, as in most of
Northern and Central Europe, is to plant two out of
three fields with grain. In Finland the two-field
system also has been much used, because it was
thought advantageous and cheap to cultivate rye in
alternate years, allowing the fields to lie fallow in
the other years. This is still extensively done in
Upland, the part of Sweden opposite Southern Finland,
as the best means of producing wheat in loam or clay
soil. It may pay so long as land is of little value and
when sufficient pasture land is to be found elsewhere.
To-day, when it is desirable to cultivate oats and
grasses on the plough land, a better system of rotation
is being introduced and is now common over large
districts, especially on the big farms; while, on the
other hand, the peasants retain the old rotation. In
the north the cultivation of artificial grasses is
neglected.
To carry out this scientific system of rotation it
is necessary to produce more manure; and for this
purpose farmers have begun to import several kinds of
artificial manure, kainite, crushed bone and phosphates,
especially the Thomas-phosphate from ironworks, to
the value of about 500,000 marks a year. An import
duty has been put on salts from Stassfurt and on
nitrates. Crushed bone is produced in Finland.
In old days farming implements were used in
Finland which were unknown in other parts of Europe,
indicative of a backward stage of development. Some
were especially connected with the burning of the
forests. Among these is the forked plough, a very old
implement consisting of two long forks which move
the earth without turning it over. It is an even more
elementary implement than the angle-plough of the
Slavs, which in ancient writings was described as
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