necessaries of life by fishing. When, however, a landowner,
on account of the insignificant extent or the small
productiveness of his farm, finds himself unable to subsist
without seeking the wages of a labourer, his position is not
better, or but little better, than that of the cotter
(Husmand) alongside of him, notwithstanding that the latter
is not owner of the land he cultivates. It is a matter of
course that such farmers will be destitute of economical
power, and unable to give the communal or the provincial
exchequer any visible contribution towards the funds that
have to be raised in order to meet the public expenditure.
The existence of such small proprietors is not, on the
whole, desirable.'

In the province of South Trondhjem the great increase of the
indebtedness of the landowners is ascribed in part to the subdivision of
property by the creation of _Myrmoend_, literally 'bogmen'
(bog-trotters?), or men supplied gratuitously, in recent times, with
small plots of waste land, for the purpose of qualifying them as voters.
Subdivision has likewise resulted from the partition of holdings in
common, which, according to Dr. Broch, formed, in 1870, 13.4 per cent.
of all the properties in Norway; principally in the Western Provinces,
from the Naze to the Fiord of Trondhjem, where they constituted at that
period, on the average as much as 30 per cent. of the landed property.
Under a law passed in 1857, those lands are now divisible or
exchangeable, and it appears from the report of the Prefects that the
demands in that direction cannot be satisfied by the Government
officials with sufficient promptness. In the province of South
Trondhjem, for instance, about 40 per cent. of the properties were still
held in common in 1875, but between 1876 and 1880 the partition of such
lands was advancing 'at the rate of about twenty farms per annum.'

The Prefect of Romsdal enumerates the causes of an increasing
subdivision of landed property as follows: 1. The clearing of land for
fields and meadows with the view of affording support to more families
than one. 2. The desire of a proprietor to let more of his children than
the nearest _Odelsberretige_[15] come into the possession of his estate.
3. In the case of an indebted proprietor, the necessity of parting with
a portion of his land in order to get clear of his creditors; and 4. The
desire on the part of persons who h