As you sail round the coast and call at the various ports, you see great piles of timber, and ships from many countries loading planks; also huge ponds full of logs, and close at hand sawmills cutting them. You are here reminded that one of Sweden’s greatest industries is the timber trade. You would expect this if you travel through the country, for everywhere you see large forests, especially in the Norrland. More than half of the country is covered with forest. This industry is greatly helped by the many rivers. Men go up in the winter to these forests to cut down the trees, which they haul over the snow, when it is deep upon the ground, to the rivers. They have to make special roads in the woods for this, and in the spring the logs are allowed to float down the river to its mouth, where the sawmills are. Sometimes they take months, sometimes they take years. Very few are lost. At other times the logs are formed into huge rafts, which are kept in the centre of the stream by men with long poles. They usually try to get them done before the end of the summer, or they will need to return the following year, as the rivers are usually frozen every winter. As soon as they arrive at the river’s mouth, they are taken to the sawmills, and cut into planks of various sizes. What is done with all this timber? A large number of the thin, short logs are sent to Britain to be props in the pits. Perhaps, when you are travelling in the train, the sleepers on which the rails are laid may have come from Sweden. A great deal of the timber is crushed into pulp, and then used for the making of paper. The Swedes make doors and windows for us. They even export wooden houses. Another great industry is match-making. They do a wonderful thing in this industry. A Swede invented a so-called “complete machine,” which reduces the manual labour very much. The match material, which is first cut by other machines, is placed into the “complete machine” at one end, and comes out at the other ready made and packed in boxes, without a workman having to touch them. A machine can turn out 40,000 boxes in eleven hours.