'Fite soil of Lapland is generally sterile. The greater part of the country is covered with rocks, or moss, or uravelly plains, or a kind of turf composed of mosses decayed I,y the frost, and impregnated with standing water. There are a few tracts of tolerable soil, espe cially in the more southern districts.
The vegetable productions are not numerous, but more various than generally imagined. Wahlenberg's edition of the Kura Lap,f2onica describes 1037 species of • s hound in Lapland, inure than double the number ehserved by Linnozus. ()I this number only 490 are perfect plants ; the remaining 591 are eryptogamou a. there are 102 species ; of alga, 55 ; of fungi, 94, ; of musci, and of lichens, 207. OF the perleet plants, tue snowy Alps contain 93 species ; the subalpine region, I ; and the woody region, about 313. Ut trees (reckoning tne salices) there are 26 kinds; consisting of the Scotch lit, spruce lir, birch, alder, poplar, mountain ash, bird cherry, and nineteen species of willows. Tnere arc do fruit trees in the country, but a variety of berries are spontaneously produced : such as black-currants, rasp-berries, craw-berries, juniper-berries, WI-berries, and the Norwegian mulberry, which grows upon a creep ing plant, and is greatly esteemed as an antiscorbune.* In the gardens towards the south, are rased crcsses, spinach, unions, leeks, chives, orache, red cabbage, ra dishes, mustard ; currants, barberries, elder-berry ; wneIrose, columbines, rose campion, carnations, sweet-williams; potatoes about the size of poppy-heads ; French-beans, broad-beans , and tobacco, when carefully managed ; but neither white cabbage nor pease come to any perfection ; and apples, pears, plums, and cherries, scarcely grow at all, though, cultivated with the greatest attention. The most abundant native vegetables are sorrel, which is of great service on account of its antiscorbutic properties ; angelica, which is highly relished as an article of food ; and the lichen rangiferinus, which furnishes the chief subsistence of the reindeer during winter, and which the Laplanders frequently boil in broth for their own use. Of the indigenous fruits, the most delicious is the berry of the rubes arcticus ; which, when sufficiently ripened, is said to be superior in fragrance and flavour to the finest raspberries or strawberries. A small plateful fills an apartment with a more exquisite scent than the finest perfumes ; and it is preserved in Sweden as one of the finest sweetmeats.
Except in a few sheltered vallics, and on the banks of the rivers in the Southern districts, there are no agri cultural labourers in Lapland. In some places a plough of a peculiar construction, suited to ground lull of largC I stones, is employed in preparing the field for the seed ; but in general the earth is dug by the labourer. The grain, which grows best, and is chiefly sown in Lapland, is barley, or rather big ; but in the lower regions rye is occasionally cultivated; and oats have been raised even in the high, level of Enontekis. It is found, that grain will not ripen in any district where the mean temperature of the three summer months does not reach to 473p. Its progress to maturity is extremely rapid ; and the corn sown in the end of May is commonly cut clown in the end of July. From the commencement of the seed time to the end of harvest, seldom more than sixty days elapse. As an instance of the rapidity of vegetation during the summer season of Lapland, Accrbi has affirmed, that, at Enontekts, a tobacco plant generally increases more than an inch in circumference (luring the interval of 24 hours. The Finnish colonists in L upland sow considerable quan tities of turnip seed, which frequently succeeds ; and of this root the native Laplanders are so fond. that they will often give a cheese, says Linnxus, in exchange for a tur nip. The Finns have introduced the cultivation of grain even into the country of Alten ; and theirs may be con sidered as the most northern agriculture of the world.
The domestic animals of the Laplanders, are cows, sheep, dogs, goats, and rein-deer. The cows arc fed du ring winter on hay from the meadows, or on the moss used by the rein-deer. The sheep and goats subsist on similar food ; and, notwithstanding the rigour of the cli mate, are remarkably prolific. The she goats constantly produce two kids, and sometimes three at a birth ; and the ewes often bring- forth twins twice a year. The dogs arc
chiefly kept for collecting the herds of rein-deer, and are trained to obey the slightest signal from their masters. The rein-deer arc the most valuable part of a Laplander's possessions, and the principal object of his attention. These animals have a considerable resemblance to stags ; and their whole body is of a grey colour, which becomes whiter before the hair falls off. They cast their horns every year ; the males immediately after the rutting sea son, in the end of November ; and the females in May, after having brought forth their young. The new horns are at first flexible, and so tender as to occasion pain to the animal when roughly handled Tnose of the male are often two feet and a half in length, and their points are as far distant from each other. The height of the animal, from the fore foot to the top of the hack, is gene rally lour feet ; and the length, from the shoulder to the tail, two feet. The hoofs are constructed in such a man ner, that, when the foot is pressed on the ground, their points are separated from each other, and striking toge ther every time the foot is raised, occasion a crackling noise as the animal walks along. The rein-deer eat grass during summer, and feed with avidi:y on the great water horse-tail, even in a dry state ; but they will not eat hay ; and subsist during the greater part of the year entirely upon the lichen rangiferinus, or rein-deer moss, which grows every where in great abundance, and which the animal easily contrives to reach under the deep covering of snow, where it is protected from the frost. They are said also to feed on frogs, snakes, and lemnings, or moun tain rats ; and to be particularly fond of human urine, which they greedily lick up wherever it has fallen. Of these useful creatures a wealthy Laplander often possesses a thousand, or more ; a person of the middle class from 300 to 700; and the poorer people from 50 to 200. The herds are commonly tended by the children and females of the family ; and are driven home, morning and evening, to be milked. For this purpose they are tied, by a rope put round their horns, to a small pole stuck in the ground; and all hands, master and mistress. men and maids, are busily employed in milking. When the milk does not come easily, they beat the udder with their hands to cause a greater flow ; and each female generally yields about the same quantity as a she-goat. When the young males are about a year and a hall old, the Laplander pro ceeds to castrate them, by bruising the contents of the scrotum with his teeth, yet so as not to break the skin, which would generally prove fatal. These, if not put to work, become larger, fatter, and tamer than such as are left in their natural state ; and are counted of so great. value to their owner, that the worth of any article is com monly expressed by equalling it to a gelt reindeer; and it is considered as one of the highest compliments to a friend, to tell him, that he is as estimable as a rein-deer gelding. During summer, the gelt rein-deer and the hinds are commonly suffered to range the woods without any atten dance ; and every person is able to know his own deer by a particular mark or incision, made in the animal's ear. After seven years of age, the males are apt to die, of the weakness and emaciation which succeed the casting of the hair and horns : but the gelding lives to the age of 12 or 14 years. They are subject also to various diseases ; such as ulcers near the upper edges of the hoof, which often render them completely lame, and unable to keep up with the herd : a vertigo, or giddiness. causing than to run round continually, generally incurable, cut sometimes removed by cutting the cars, so as to produce a free dis charge of blood : ulcerations in the flesh, an epidemic disorder, supposed to prove fatal by the animal licking and swallowing tne corrosive matter from his own skin, or from others of the herd : an affection of the spleen, which is accounted incurable, and so infectious, that those which are attacked are immediately killed. They arc much tor mented in summer by a species of gad-fly (,estrus uzrandi) which deposits its eggs in the skin, and produce ulcera tions which frequently prove destructive to the fawns.