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reindeer,
10 l
The superintendence of horse-breeding devolves on the Studs Board,
consisting of a president, two members, and a secretary; its head-quarters are at
Stockholm.
Except for the need of a number of breeders, Sweden produces sufficient
horses for her own requirements, and has even some to spare for export (see
Table 25). Nevertheless, the present condition of horse-breeding is by no
means satisfactory. The continued import of breeders is alarming. Having once
ascertained what types are particularly needed, one should work with those types
and concentrate all one’s efforts on them.
Among the measures that have been taken by the State during the last few
years for the maintenance of horse-breeding, may be mentioned:
small grants for the introduction of properly kept stud-books, and for the
protection of native breeds of horses;
grants to a loan-fund- from which every year a sum of 100 000 kronor is to
be made available for loans to horse-breeders for their purchases of
thoroughbred brood-mares (cf. the Government Proclamation in the matter, dated July
4, 1913),
a law concerning the compulsory inspection of stallions, the aim of which is
to prevent the employment of unsuitable and inferior sizes. This law, however,
is of a facultative nature and cannot be applied in districts where the existing
conditions make such a step necessary, before the proper Agricultural Society
and County Council have applied to the Government to allow this step to be
taken.
Reindeer.
A very special kind of animal husbandry is the reindeer-breeding pursued in
the northernmost parts of Sweden. Originally begun and carried on exclusively
by the Lapps, the Scandinavian reindeer-breeding, pursued in the northernmost
parts of the country, is the westernmost and most highly developed offshoot of
a branch of industry that forms the staple means of subsistence of a great
number of different nomad peoples throughout the entire north qf Asia and
Europe. The considerable profit that this industry — originally an occupation
confined to the Lapps — often yields under favourable circumstances has induced
a number of Swedes and, more especially, Finns, too, to adopt it as a very
remunerative means of supplementing their livelihood.
There are, broadly speaking, two main kinds of the reindeer industry in
Sweden, viz. that of breeding the mountain reindeer and that of breeding the forest
reindeer, which constitute two separate biological groups. Whereas the mountain
reindeer takes to the mountains in summer, living in the forests only in winter,
the forest reindeer is able to remain in the forest regions the whole year round.
The mountain reindeer are taken in the spring up to the mountains, where
the animals find on the mountain prairies and snow-fields the pasture they
require, and a sorely needed immunity from mosquitoes and gad-flies.
Sometimes, the requisite supply of grass and snow not being forthcoming on the
Swedish side, the reindeer have to cross over to Norway, occasionally
penetrating right down to the coast. When autumn approaches, the animals move down
again from the mountains to graze in the pine forests and especially on the
extensive pine-barrens, where they find beneath the snow their winter food-supply,
which consists almost entirely of a kind of lichen, called "reindeer moss". In
certain cases (Västerbotten, and North Jämtland) the reindeer go right down
to the Gulf of Bothnia; in others (South Jämtland, Härjedalen, and Dalarne)
they merely move a few miles east of their summer grounds. The reindeer
breeding industry in the mountains is carried on from Karesuando, in the extreme
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