ork;
while some were so small as to have only a few sheaves of corn, or a rig
or two of potatoes, scattered among the trunks of the trees. These,
however, were occupied by the farm servants, or cotters, paying for
their houses and land in work (_Husmoena_). Twenty to forty cows could
be counted on the large farms. In the district of Verdal
(Trondhjemsfiord) Mr. Laing saw beautiful little farms of forty to fifty
acres, each having a pasturage or grass tract in the mountains, where
the cattle were kept during the summer until the crops were taken in,
and upon each such out-farm, or _Soeter_, there was a house and
regular dairy, to which, he informs us, 'the whole of the cattle and
the dairy-maids, with their sweethearts, are sent to junket and to amuse
themselves for three or four months of the year.[6] We can well believe
that, in such circumstances, Mr. Laing found 'this class of _Boender_ the
most interesting people in Norway,' and that 'there are none similar to
them in the feudal countries of Europe.' He appears to have been more
particularly impressed with

'the farms large enough to keep a score of cows, six horses
and a small flock of sheep and goats, and to maintain a
family and servants in all that land usually produces,
leaving a surplus for sale sufficient to pay taxes, wages,
and to provide the comforts and necessaries of life to a
fair extent,' all which could be bought 'for 1000l. or
1200l., or even less.'

As regards the agricultural labourer, or cotter, Mr. Laing conceived
'his average condition to be that of holding land on which he could sow
three-quarters of an imperial quarter of corn and three imperial
quarters of potatoes, and which would enable him to keep two cows, or an
equivalent number of sheep or goats.' His wages are stated to have been
4-1/2d. to 6d. per diem, in addition to his food. It was consequently
'amusing to recollect the benevolent speculations in our Agricultural
Reports, of the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases in our midland counties of
England, for bettering the condition of labourers in husbandry, by
giving them, at a reasonable rent, a quarter of an acre of land to keep
a cow on, or by allowing them to cultivate the slips of land on the
roadside, outside of their hedges.' He also derides 'the agricultural
writers' who 'tell us, indeed, that labourers in agriculture are much
better off as farm servants, than they would be as small proprietors,'
fo