ABSTRACT
Scandinavian economic history is a story of agriculture, fish, forests and metals. All the Scandinavian countries were of a strongly agrarian character, and retained much of this character for a remarkably long time, but in many parts of Scandinavia agriculture alone would have been insufficient even for the relatively small preindustrial population and the other resources mentioned were of fundamental importance. Dominant among the traditional exports of Scandinavian foodstuffs were agricultural products from Denmark, especially live cattle and grain, and fish – mostly dried cod and salted herring from Norway. In agriculture, there was probably a deterioration in the quality of the soil in some regions, in part because of the difficulty of keeping an optimal balance between grain production and cattle farming. Natural supplies were not always steady, however, and many possibilities existed for local or regional overexploitation. Industrialization and population growth in the nineteenth century led to an intensified utilization of natural resources, and in new forms.
