There was, at the time of Mr. Laing's residence in Norway, 'small difference in the way of living between high and low, because every man lived from the produce of his farm, and observed the utmost simplicity and economy with regard to everything that took money out of his pocket.' Furniture and clothes, except the yeoman's Sunday hat, were all home-made. 'Here was a whole population, in an old European country, dealing direct with Nature, as it were, for every article, without the intervention of money, or even of barter.' It was only the small yeomen on the verge of the Fjeld, or in the glens, far above the level of the land producing corn, and the inhabitants of districts less favoured by nature, 'whose common bread consisted of the bark of trees, mixed and ground up with ill-ripened oats; but even in their case, trout, dried and salted for winter, was no inconsiderable part of their provision, their houses being, at the same time, comfortable, though small, with wooden floors and glass windows. Apart from these exceptionally situated proprietors, Mr. Laing found there really was 'no difference between the residence of a public functionary, of a clergyman, or of a gentleman of larger property and that of a _Bonde_, or peasant. The latter are as well, as commodiously and even showily, lodged as the former can be, and the properties are as good.' Mr. Laing, however, makes a reservation under this head in respect of the 'cultivated classes,' as being indisputably superior in mental acquirements to the yeoman farmer, and who lived in the same manner as the corresponding classes in England. Towards the end of his stay in Norway, Mr. Laing often heard 'from the most intelligent men in the country' that the yeoman farmer lived too high; indulged too much in expensive luxuries, as coffee and sugar; in frequent and expensive entertainments at each other's houses; in carrioles, sledges, and harness of a costly kind; and even in a horse or two more than the farm work required; and he certainly thought this had resulted in a general want of money among them to pay even the most trifling taxes and other sums. A man with land worth three or four thousand dollars, and with horses, cows, and all sorts of products in abundance, was often at a loss for five or ten dollars. Nevertheless, he was of opinion that 'the increase of the tastes and habits which belong to property tended to keep population within the bounds of what can be comfortably subsisted, and without which the increase of subsistence would tend to evil rather than good.' It was, indeed, 'a good thing that they all had the ideas, habits, and character of people possessed of independent property upon which they were living without any care about increasing it, and free from the anxiety and fever of money making or money losing.'