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10
I. TH15 NATURAL RESOURCES OF SWEDEN.
and Western Europe began to be so thickly populated and so de-forested,
that the neighbouring peoples, first those of the Hanse towns, then the
Dutch, and later the English had to turn to Scandinavia for timber. Thanks
to favourable conditions of nature, the position has, since then, become that
Sweden is indisputably one of the greatest timber exporting countries in the
world. New regions have been opened up, fresh virgin forests elsewhere
■exploited, but Sweden consistently maintains its premier position amongst
those countries that deal in timber, thanks to the excellent quality of its
products and its excellent highways of transport along its rivers and other
water-ways. Iron, steel, and cement have had a triumphant progress
through the world, but still the demand for the products of the forest is as
urgent as ever from the great countries, with their ever-increasing
populations. The immense forest tracts of the West will soon have nothing to
offer the markets outside America, the countries to the East will soon have
■exhausted those of their virgin forests that are easily accessible, and the
great supplies of timber from the virgin forests of Siberia can scarcely
be put on the market at prices unfavourable for the Swedish industry,
•on account of the immense distances and the consequent great cost of
transport. The development of technical science has carried us from round
timber to sawn, and on to woodpulp; we can scarcely make a mistake in
prophesying that organic chemistry, will, before long, advance to methods
to of using now worthless products of the timber industry which will very
■considerably enhance the value of the forests of Sweden. When, in a not
too distant future, the virgin forests have everywhere been transformed
into timber, then will come the halcyon days of Sweden’s forests, provided
that, by then, they have been set in order; provided that the State, the
•communities, and private persons have sunk all that is possible of the
necessary capital required to secure permanent improvements.
Nature has presented Sweden with no source of wealth to be
compared with what lies slumbering in the depths of the forests!
The animal world and its economic production.
We might say that the age of the chase is gone by, and that of fishery
lias commenced, when we consider the products bestowed upon Sweden for
her national economy by the animal world and the seas that surround her
shores.
Even though the value of game may be reckoned by millions of kronor,
yet the plough and the axe have so far disturbed the seclusion of the
larger beasts and checked their propagation, that their flesh, and above
all their skins, which at one time were among the most importants items
•of export, can scarcely be of any real importance again.
Possibly the great areas of peat-land and forest may once more provide a
quiet retreat for the breeding of furred animals, with the beasts in a kind
■of half-wild condition. The indications in America afford good hopes for
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