Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester].

  • Edwin Lankester
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/418 (page 19)
    forms the principal object of cultivation; barley being raised in those countries, as with us, only for the pur- pose of brewing, and the use of oats being limited principally to the feeding of horses. In all these last- mentioned places, wheat is also grown; but its con- ‘sumption is limited, and the principal part is made an object of external trade. The winters of Norway are intensely cold, but their summers are, on the contrary, excessively warm, particularly in the vallies, upon which the rays of the sun are reverberated during .the day from the moun- tains, while the atmosphere has no time for becoming cool during the few hours when the sun is below the horizon. In such situations barley is generally sown and reaped within the short space of -sixty days; sometimes even six weeks are found to suffice for fulfilling the hopes of the husbandman. The Nor- wegian agriculturist is, however, occasionally visited by seasons, throughout. which the sua appears to lose its genial. power, and vegetation is stunted ; blossoms, indeed, appear, but are unsucceeded by fruits, and the straw yields nothing but empty ears. This calamity is happily of rare occurrence ; and, unless when checked by a premature frost, the har- vests of Norway are for the most part abundant and excellent. yal Agriculture is pursued systematically and even scientifically in Sweden, by which means the pre- vailing barrenness of the soil is partially remedied. The province of Gothland is made to produce barley, oats, rye, and wheat, as well as pease and beans. In these climates, the transition of the seasons is always abrupt. Wegetation, when it has once commenced, proceeds with a rapidity unknown in these more temperate regions; and the interval which elapses between committing the seed to the soil and gathering