y at a
time when its agriculture has to compete with American cereals, its
timber industry with supplies from America and the Baltic, and its
wooden ships with iron steamers transporting cargoes at an almost
nominal freight, is not yet to be found in statistical records.

The indisputable fact remains that, notwithstanding the existence of a
system of land tenure which, according to Mr. Laing, was so perfect
between 1834 and 1836 as to render its adoption in this country, and
especially in Ireland, highly desirable, the yeomen farmers of
Norway--framers of their own laws and absolute masters of their own
destinies--are not only at present suffering from the commercial and
agricultural depression that obtains in other countries of Europe, in
which the social state is more or less differently constituted, but also
find themselves, in face of that depression, with exceptionally heavy
burdens on their backs in the form of pecuniary indebtedness at a rate
of interest which mere agriculture, under the most favourable
circumstances, cannot possibly afford to pay.

This heavy indebtedness has not, as a rule, been incurred for productive
purposes, such as drainage, improved methods of agriculture, the
increase of stock, &c.; and although the use of simple agricultural
machinery is somewhat on the increase in Norway, yet agriculture remains
very much in the same primitive condition in which it was found by Mr.
Laing.[18] The Prefects attribute this backwardness to want of skill on
the part of the proprietors (Romsdal), to the poverty of the soil, to
the dearness of agricultural labour, and generally to the unremunerative
results of husbandry since the depreciation of the value of its
products. In a letter addressed last year to the 'Morgenblad,' the
leading Journal at Christiania, by a native authority on the subject of
agriculture, it is urged that the landed proprietors of Norway have 'for
some years past been going down hill;' the hopes of improving the
condition of agriculture, entertained about thirty years ago, when
efforts were first commenced in that direction, being now entirely
dissipated.

'It is painful,' he says 'to see how the forests are
decreasing and how land once under cultivation is lying
unused. When asked the reason, the proprietors reply that
the prices of corn and other agricultural products are so
low and the wages of labour so high, owing to emigration,
that they have not