years for the regulars, 2 years for officers of the naval reserve.
The entire training of the latter occupies 3 or 4 years. In order
to obtain admission to the naval college, it is necessary, besides
having passed the middelskole examination, to have served on
board a merchantman for 21 months. Twenty-five pupils are
admitted annually.
As the principal aim of the Norwegian fleet is 'a defensive
one, the crews are trained chiefly during cruises and gun-boat and
torpedo-boat manoeuvres on the coast. There are longer cruises
with training-ships for cadets and other pupils.
The highest naval authorities are classed similarly to those
of the army. The commander-in-chief of the navy, who in kes the
chief command, when the king does not take it upon himself, is
also at the head of the navy office (admiralty), which is a part
of the defence department. There is a special general staff for
the navy in Kristiania.
With the reforms of the last five years, whereby chiefly new
ships have been acquired, and a new organisation of the force
effected, the ordinary naval estimates have risen from 2.8 to 4.5
million kroner. The extraordinary grants that have been necessary
for the building of the 4 armour-clads,; completion of stores, etc.
have amounted, during the same period, to about 26 million kr.
Norway, which; next to Great Britain, the United States and
Germany, has the largest, mercantile fleet, can of course not compete
with the Powers in the matter of a naval fleet. What has
been aimed at during the recent development of the navy, is to
enable it, with the aid of fortifications and submarine mines, and
the splendid defence afforded by the skjsergaard. with its difficult
navigation, to keep open the communication along the coast, and
prevent an effectual blockade.
These are questions of vital importance to Norway, where a
large proportion of the population is associated with the coast,
and where so many of the necessaries of life must be imported
by sea. A maritime country needs a navy, and Norway has begun,
to the best of her ability, to acquire one.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
.Norsk Tidsskrift fo r S0vassen. Horten 1883-if.
AGRICULTURE
As Norway, in its main features may be described as being a
i- barren and mountainous country, stretching from 58 to 71
degrees northern latitude, and lying open to the Atlantic Ocean
and the Northern Polar Sea, it ’will be easily understood that
agriculture cannot play any important part relatively to the area
of the country. The arable soil is found in comparatively narrow
strips, gathered in deep and narrow valleys which branch into the
mountain table-land, and around fjords and lakes; while large
continuous tracts fit for cultivation, as measured by the regular
European standard, do not exist. The entire area of Norway is
calculated at 124,525 square miles *) which, as regards their nature
and use, are distributed as follows:
Town territories .
Sq. miles
. . . -. ' 96 ‘
Percentage of area
of country
0.1
Grain fields.................... . . . . 893 0.7
Cultivated meadows . . . . . 1,450 1.2
Natural meadows. . . . . . . 1,211 1.0
W o o d la n d .................... . . . : 26,317 21.1
Pastures, home & mountain grazing land 9,438 7.6
B o g s .................... ..... . . . . . 4,632 3.7
Bare mountains . . . . . . . 73,752 59.2
Lakes.............................. . . . . 4,789. 3.8
Snow & ice . . . . . . . . 1,947 1.6 •
Total, Norway . . . . 124,525 100.00
*) A more recent calculation of the area gives a slightly different result
(124,496 sq. miles),