It is only natural that, living in a country where fish is so plentiful, the people themselves should be great fish-eaters, and the daily fish-markets at Bergen and other places on the coast are most interesting sights. As a rule the fish are brought to market alive in half-sunken canoes, towed astern of the fishing-boats, and at Bergen all the bargaining is done between the buyers on the quayside and the sellers in their boats. In proportion to the population the variety of occupations in Norway is certainly great, and there are other industries besides those already mentioned. There is, for example, a considerable trade in skins and furs, in condensed milk, butter, and margarine, and in certain minerals and chemicals. Employment is found also for many men on the railways--in road-making, in boat and shipbuilding, in timber-dressing, in mechanical engineering, in slate-quarrying, in stone-cutting, and in mining (principally in the silver mines at Koengsberg). It would seem, therefore, as if there were plenty of work for the Norwegians to do, and they are willing workers. Abject poverty, as we know the term, has no place in Norway at present, for the country can support its people, thanks, perhaps, to the fact that the desire to emigrate to America and Canada is strong. CHAPTER IV ON THE FARM Norway is not like England, where nearly every bit of ground is cultivated, for nothing will grow on bare rocks, and a good deal of Norway is barren land. In fact, except in the low country down in the south, the only land worth cultivating lies, as a rule, in the valleys near the fjords. There are situated all the farms, sometimes with small orchards of apples and cherries, but more often with potato plots, a little corn, and a great amount of grassland. As the mountains are always so close at hand, the fields are generally strewn with rocks and boulders, and are very uneven, so haymaking is not easy, and such a thing as a mowing-machine would be quite useless. Every blade of grass that can be gathered has to be made into hay, otherwise the ponies and cows would starve in the winter, as they are often snowed up for weeks at a time. Haymaking is, therefore, a great business, and the amount of grass which the Norwegians contrive to scrape off their land is marvellous. At the best of times it only grows to a height of about six inches, but scythes and reaping-hooks find their way into every nook and corner, and grass that no English farmer would trouble to cut is all raked in with the greatest care. Parties go up the mountain-sides to ledges of the cliffs, and on to the tops of the mountains, to make sure that nothing is wasted, the grass being brought down to the farms to be dried.