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III.
RURAL HUSBANDRY.
From early times agriculture has customarily been described as the
chief industry of Sweden, but nowadays it does not, for several
considerations, possess the same right to this title that it once did. For one thing,
the number of the persons engaged in agriculture has not increased in the
same proportion as the total population of the country; the total of those
engaged in this pursuit, who during the twenties and thirties of last
century, amounted to 82 % of the entire population, formed at the last
census in 1910 only 48 Since the year 1880, there has even been an
absolute decrease in the agricultural population, from 3 078 000 in the
year mentioned to about 2 663 000 in 1910. This decrease, which has
occurred simultaneously with an increase in the crops produced, means,
of course, that greater economy has begun to be practised with regard
to expensive human labour, but, while such economy still can, and in many
respects ought to be still further extended, the diminution in the supply
of labourers, has, in many places, made it distinctly difficult to carry
on the work with undiminished intensity.
But even if the area of the cultivated land, as well as the returns
obtained from it, have been steadily on the increase, this increase has not
kept pace with the growing need of the population for the necessaries of life,’
but, as will be shown below, Sweden, after having had, at least in some
earlier periods, a considerable surplus of grain, has now become obliged to
import very large quantities of cereals, etc., and as the export-surplus of
cattle and animal-products that has simultaneously arisen does not cover
the import-excess of grain, the product of Swedish agriculture, taken as
a whole and calculated according to values, no longer satisfies the
demands of the population of the country for the necessaries of life.
It must be considered in this connection that agriculture, which,
in the middle of the 19th century, was the only Swedish industry of
Note. With reference to the altered organization of the respective Statistics, older
figures are in certain cases retained in this Section.
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