FARMING IN NORWAY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 113, 6 February 1937, Page 6

FARMING IN NORWAY

Visitor’s Description “Now that I have seen farming in England and Australia, the Norwegian farming seems of laundry work,” said Mrs. 0. Horsel, a Norwegian visitor who arrived at Auckland this week. Mrs. Horsel, whose home is in Lillehammer, Norway, is making a short visit to New Zealand in the course of a holiday tour. As her husband and father were both owners of large farms in Norway she had always been interested in farming countries. Norway was very largely a farming country and in many ways a more difficult country to farm than others she had visited, Mrs. Horsel said. For at least four months of the year heavy snowfalls made the work extremely difficult and in the dry weather everything that might be used as food for the animals, from hay and corn to potato tops, was hung out to dry. There were no large stretches of hay as in England, only patches of grass on rocky slopes, broken up with trees, bushes and boulders, and every blade of grass was cherished.

Only a few yards of the grass was cut at a time, and then the grass was hung up over wooden racks, which were permanent fixtures in every field. Working in this manner, it was often weeks before the hay was stored. On the small farms the whole family assisted in the haymaking, and tiny children, mothers and grandmothers were to be seen piling the grass on racks. The work went on through wet and fine weather, for even the youngest children in Norway were very strong and used to the rain. “Farming in Norway is a hard struggle, but by no means an unsuccessful one,” Mrs. Horsel said. Fruit was extraordinarily plentiful, and plums, raspberries and currants flourished long after the English season had ended. Silver fox farming formed a sideline to many small farmers, and there was hardly a farm without a wire-netted fox enclosure. ■One of the most picturesque aspects ot farming, in Norway was the establishment of settar girls at the mountain outposts of the farms. In summer the cows were sent up the mountains to graze in charge of one or more settar girls. Some of the large farms employed as many as 12 or 20 settar girls, who made cheese at the mountain farm. Mrs. Horsel said she had often heard of New Zealand as a wonderful farming country. In Norway the Dominion was regarded as a farmer’s paradise as so much had been heard about It from visitors. Whenever she had heard of New Zealand it had been described as possessing “the perfect climate.” . •

There was more family life in Norway than in other countries she had visited, Mrs. Horsel considered. She was amazed at the number of girls following business or professional careers in England and Australia.

The use of the national costume was still very popular in Norway. This was particularly noticeable in the country. In the.towns the national costume was usually worn on market days and on festive occasions, while in the larger cities ordinary clothes were more often scon. Some of the Norwegian towns possessed various affiliated branches of national women’s organisations, but there were comparatively few local associations. Women in Norway did not care greatly for any forms of public life.