soil and retaining its moisture is obtained, and also by those little ridges and hollows, although of so trifling a size, shelter and shade are given to the first sprout of the tender plant, which always appears to thrive best under the lee of a clod, stone, or any little elevation. It is an improvement upon the rolling a field into one flat glazed surface, for sun and rain to bake and wash.

Vegetation in this country, by its wonderful rapidity, gives you the impression of a self-acting power rather than of a process following warmth and moisture. The coltsfoot and the strawberry plants seem to have thawed a little circle of snow around themselves, and to be in full vegetable life before there is any perceptible change of temperature in the air. The grass springs up so suddenly, that its growth must have been in progress under the cover of snow. In the last week of May, the snow was gone, the country was green, the cuckoo was in the woods, the swallow about the houses, and salmon springing in the fiords. Summer was come; and I yoked my cariole, and set off for Sweden, stopping two days at Christiania to exchange Norwegian for Swedish paper

money.

Ouse, June 1.- Set off at five o'clock this morning from Christiania. There are two main roads from Norway to Sweden on this side of the Dovre Fjeld. One passes along the coast, by Moss, Frederickshald, and crossing Swinesund, to Stromstad, Uddevalla, and the south end of the great Wener Lake. The other by Kongsvinger, on

the Glommen river, comes in upon the north end of the Wener, at Carlstad, and its course is about 130 miles more inland. I have taken this road. The country from Christiania to this single house has already in the 30 or 35 miles of easterly direction, lost the characteristic features of Norway the ridges and glens. My day's journey has been through a country of gentle eminences, with considerable tracts of cultivation, not broken by crags and ridges of naked rock. The valley through which the Glommen flows, as broad a river as the Rhine, is a fine strath, with much good soil, and 6 or 8 miles wide, or more, before hills, too steep for the plough, appear on either side. The Glommen here has quite the air of a corn-country river, its wide stream running with a gentle current, and bounded by flat low land and alluvial banks. I am surprised to see so much good land in the valley of this river not yet cleared of wood-land flat, unobstructed by rock, close to the road or river-side, and of good soil, to judge from a few slips of it that are under cultivation. The cause, I presume, is, that the old cultivated lands of the first quality for soil or convenience, together with the import of foreign grain at light duties, have been adequate to supply the wants of the nation hitherto; so that their lands of second quality are only now beginning to be brought into cultivation, and rather for convenience than for food. The first quality of land in this tract is alone occupied by those who live by its produce; but to cultivate the second quality, or to give rent for the first, is a

state to which it has not advanced; and the better soils of the Danish islands, close at hand, affording better and cheaper grain, will probably always prevent those of the second quality from being cultivated to advantage, or the first from yielding a rent, unless as habitations of convenience. These

lands, in fact, are much better occupied in bearing timber, which will buy corn for the population cheaper than they could produce it from soils of the second quality. To improve land, even of the best quality, as a profitable employment of capital, cannot answer, either here or in Canada, for a reason common to both countries. All agricultural labour is, from the climate, at a stand for six or eight months of the year; consequently from one half to two thirds more time must pass before capital so employed is in a train to be replaced; and one half or two thirds more capital must be expended, in every operation, than in the other corn-growing countries of the world, because the labourer, in those climates, must earn twelve months' subsistence by his four months' work. The clearing of land for necessary subsistence or family convenience, without regard to profit, is all the agricultural effort that can be safely made; and that is going on here as in Canada, and stopping at the same point, which is one far short of agricultural improvement. This district is a good illustration of Mr. Ricardo's theory of rent; but climate, as well as soil, must enter into the consideration of the capability of different countries to be cultivated by rent payers.

I had to cross three considerable rivers in ferry boats, in the course of this day's journey, the most considerable being the outlet of the great Myosen Lake, which joins a branch of the Glommen at Vormersund. The sagacity of the Norwegian horse in these ferry boats is very curious: he drags the carriage into the boat, and stands as quietly as if conscious that his movements might overbalance it. Midskoven, June. A short day's journey to this single house. At my last night's quarters I was charged for tea, bread and butter, eggs and milk, for supper, for my bed, and breakfast this morning, the same as my supper, one mark, or ten pence sterling. Here I have had, in addition to this fare, salted pike for supper. I have not before seen salted fresh water fish; I found it very good. I carry, as all Norwegian travellers do, a little box with provisions in my cariole, dine under the shade of a rock, and only trouble myself about inns towards evening. From want of forage in the country, and grass being as yet scanty, I found it impracticable to travel with my own pony; but there is no difficulty, although often great delay, in getting a horse at the post stations.

The district up to Kongsvinger, a small town at which I merely stopped for a couple of hours, and from thence up the valley of the Glommen, called generally the Osterdal, is the Lothians of Norway. The soil is the best, and the bonders who own it the most substantial in the country. Kongsvinger is, or rather has been, a frontier fortification upon an elevated point of land, round which the Glom

men makes a sudden bend from a south, to a west course, forming a lake very considerable at this season, at the foot of the hill, which is crowned with the decaying works. This lake in high floods,

communicates with another which sends a considerable water, the Wrangs-elv, into the Wener, and this would be, and probably has been, the course of the whole body of the Glommen, but for the sudden deflection at a right angle to its previous course, which it takes at Kongsvinger. The Glommen at this season is a mighty mass of water. After crossing it I followed the course of the river which runs towards the Wener, sometimes as a stream, sometimes as a long winding lake, partly hid by picturesque rocks and trees. The whole country when you look down upon it from the heights, appears a moving sea of woods. The timber felled in these forests may be sent into Sweden by the Wener lake from one side of a ridge, or into Norway from the other by the Glommen. The trees may meet again in a London wood yard.

Strand, June. I came early to this place, a hamlet of three or four houses on the road-side, and remain here for the rest of the day as my first quarters in Sweden. I was kept awake all last night by a tipsy Norwegian bonder in the next room, who was boasting that he was only a simple Norsk bonder, and asking the Swedes if they had any such bonder among them. I suppose, that in some point or other, he thought himself far superior, although in dress or appearance I could see no difference. The Glommen had drifted some of his