des of the central part of the country the pine requires one
hundred and fifty years, and rarely exceeds one hundred feet in
height, and it decreases toward the coast and northwards.

The fisheries of Norway are among the most important in the world,
yielding the nation more than seven million dollars a year, and
furnishing employment to eighty thousand men. The sea-fisheries play
the chief part in this branch of industry. The long coast line and
the great ocean depth near the coast combine to give the fisheries of
Norway unusual advantages. The abundance of fish is also due to the
presence of masses of glutinous matter, apparently living protoplasm,
which furnishes nutriment for millions of animalcules which again
become food for the herring and other fish. The fish are mainly of the
round sort found in deep waters, the cod, herring, and mackerel being
the most important.

The cod yields the largest monetary returns. This fish migrates to the
coast of Norway to spawn and in search of food. The best cod fisheries
are in Romsdal, Nordland, and Tromsoe counties, the Lofoten islands in
Tromsoe alone furnishing employment to more than four thousand men. The
cod weighs from eight to twenty pounds and measures from five to six
feet in length. Some are merely dried after having been cleaned. This
is done by hanging them by the tail on wooden frames. The others are
sent to the salting stations where they are salted and dried on flat
rocks. A fish weighing ten pounds will yield two pounds of salted cod,
the loss being due to the removal of the head and entrails and the
drying out of the water.

There are numerous secondary products from the cod, the most valuable
being the cod liver oil. The livers of the fish are exposed to a jet
of superheated steam which destroys the liver cells and causes the
small drops of oil to run together. The roe are salted and sent to
France to be used for bait in the sardine fisheries.

In the matter of the handicraft industries carried on in the homes,
Norway has long taken high rank. As early as the ninth century her
artisans were skilled in the manufacture of arms, farming implements,
and boats, and her women in cloth weaving and embroidery. During
recent times the ease and cheapness with which foreign products could
be obtained caused a marked decline in home industries; but at the
present moment an effort is being made to rehabilitate them through a
national domestic industry association, or