in many other places that might easily be mentioned, the soil is excellent
and might be cultivated to great advantage. I have no doubt
that a skilful Scotch farmer of capital, were he to take a lease of an
extensive Swedish farm, would soon realize a handsome fortune.
The grain chiefly cultivated in Sweden is rye, big, oats, and wheat.
The rye is sown in autumn and is ripe by the beginning of next September.
As it thrives in a very light soil it is well adapted to most
parts of Sweden. The rye crops are generally thin; but they fill the
eye and have the appearance o f an excellent crop. Perhaps there is
no species of grain so well adapted for a northern climate as rye ; and
perhaps the habits of the Swedes are so fixed that it would be impossible
to alter them. But the seeds of rye are so much smaller than
those o f any other species of grain sown in this country, that, comparatively
speaking, it must he a very unproductive crop. As far as my
own taste is concerned, I consider barley bread as more agreeable to
the palate than rye bread. Though I admit that it is not so well
adapted to the Swedish mode o f baking only twice a year. For barley
bread is only good when newly baked.
The big is sown in the spring; (the month of May) and it is ripe
about the same time with the rye. It is a very hardy plant, is fond of
a light soil, and thrives, remarkably well in Sweden. Every field of it
that I saw was good, and at Tibbie, a little to the' west o f Stockholm,
I saw the finest crop of it that I ever beheld. It was still green on
the 4th o f September. But the seeds had reached their full size, and
the. ears were uncommonly large. • Upon one I: counted sixty full
grown seeds and ten empty ones; upon another no fewer than eighty-
four, though some of these also were empty husks. I f this field
ripened without any accident it must have yielded a most enormous
crop.
The oats were- greatly inferior, as a crop, both to the rye and the
big. But this I was told was owing to the uncommon badness o f the
summer, 1812, and that in ordinary years the crop of oats is a very
fair one. They were generally quite green and would not ripen at all;
Except in Scania, the quantity of wheat sown in Sweden is but
small. I saw several fields of it, however, nearly as far north as latitude
6o°. They were in general nearly ripe, and the crop pleased the
eye and had the appearance of a good one. The finest field which I
saw was at Tibbie, near the side of the lake Malar. It was very
much lodged, but so nearly ripe that I dare say it would be got in
With safety.
The Swedes have of late begun to sow grass; but the quantity
which I saw was very small, comparatively speaking. The grasses
which they sow are the phleum arvense, or timothy grass, and the
avena elatior. The first of these is preferred by them. They think
it softer and more agreeable to the taste of the cattle than our lollium
perenne. How far it possesses these advantages I do not know, but
the lateness of its flowering is an insuperable objection to its being
introduced into Great Britain, as no second crop of hay could be expected
from it. Perhaps in Sweden the shortness of the summer may
make this an object o f less consequence. Yet I should think that our
rye grass in common summers would yield two crops even.in Sweden.
I never saw a field of clover in Sweden, and have reason to believe
therefore that it is not cultivated in that country. It is difficult to aq-
coiunt for this neglect. Clover requires some skill to manage it properly
; but when well made into hay it goes much farther, and sells
much higher than grass hay. This is well known in the county of
Essex, where the common hay is made of elover, and brings a much
higher price than any other hay made in the kingdom.
I saw a few patches of Swedish turnips here and there; but in no
great quantity; nor did they look well. The fields were very dirty,
and the turnip plants very small, considering the season of the year.
The fields in Sweden are almost all laid out into very broad ridges,
with a deep rut cut out between each with a spade, in order to let off
the water. These ridges were quite flat, not in the least raised in the
middle; yet I saw none of them covered with water, or even marshy.
A proof that Sweden is a dry country: the Swedish plough is very
small and light, but clumsythe body is made of iron, like the Scotch
plough, but it has no coulter, and instead o f terminating behind in