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grain, is specially sensitive, and disastrous night frosts occur not infrequently even
during late summer, as early even as July.
As causes of failure of the crops in earlier times the sources indicate some<
times hard drought during early summer, sometimes incessant rain during harvest«
time, sometimes, finally, severe night frosts. When the misfortune came, some or
all of these factors might cooperate.
Were the Scandinavians of prehistoric times dependant to as great an extent
as during the historical period on the products of agriculture and cattle«rearing
for their sustenance?
Only a generation ago it was still considered that our ancestors lived mainly
by hunting and fishing and moved from one place to another to seek their prey.
And this idea seems even now to be rather common. The investigations of the
last decades have shown, however, that at least from the beginning of the later
stone age the people of Scandinavia were settled and that their domestic economy
was based chiefly on agriculture, which gave them the vegetable nutrition, and
cattle«rearing, which gave them the fat necessary — butter, tallow, and pork.
The species of grain cultivated in the North during the later stone age was
especially barley, but also wheat. In addition there was millet. During the bronze
age oats become known, at least in Denmark. During the period of migrations
we get rye.* During the early middle ages, according to statements in the laws
of the counties, the cultivation of rye was of great importance in our country.
But barley was probably still the chief cereal. This was at any rate the case at
the beginning of the modern period, according to Hans Forssell.”"*’ In 1571 in the
Sweden of that time barley formed 65 % of the harvest, rye 33 %, oats and wheat
the rest, i. e. 2 % together. At the beginning of the 19th century the figures
are: barley 25 %, rye 29 %, oats 27 %, and wheat 3 %. Thus even more than a
century ago barley was no longer the most important species of grain. It had
been surpassed by both rye and oats, an alteration of the conditions to the pre»
judice of barley which has continued in the same direction during the latest gene»
rations, so that in 1880 barley formed only 13 % of the whole harvest.
The most important cereal during the prehistoric times was thus probably
barley. But this faet exposed the harvest even more than now to the unfavou*
rable effeets of our climate. Corn sown in spring is naturally even more exposed
to the ravages of the spring drought than winter corn, and also to the night frosts
of early summer. For this reason the risk of a bad harvest was greater when
barley, sown in spring, formed a very mueh greater part of the grain than it did
later on. In addition the soil was worked and manured mueh worse in earlier
than in later times. Lack of draining made it impossible to use a large part of
the land that now gives the best and most certain crops, and the art of ditching
ground attacked by frost, which spread destruction to the adjacent fields, was
unknown.
All these circumstances together and others in addition justify us in assuming
that bad years and complete failure of the crops of grain and fodder were both more
common and more serious in earlier times than during the last couple of centuries.
* Sce Hoops, Reallex. I, p. 30 f.
•• Art. on Swedish agriculture (Proceeding of the Academy of Letters, 29), p. 17 Éf.
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