'It may,' he writes, 'with just cause be said to exist when the properties parcelled out are insufficient for the maintenance of a family, and when the farms are situated in a locality which does not afford the opportunity of some kind of subsidiary employment, or if the proprietor of such a small holding cannot attach himself to another man as a labourer for hire. When utilised, however, by the inhabitants of the coast, such subdivision cannot be regarded as excessive, for the owners of the small patches are able to obtain for themselves and their families the necessaries of life by fishing. When, however, a landowner, on account of the insignificant extent or the small productiveness of his farm, finds himself unable to subsist without seeking the wages of a labourer, his position is not better, or but little better, than that of the cotter (Husmand) alongside of him, notwithstanding that the latter is not owner of the land he cultivates. It is a matter of course that such farmers will be destitute of economical power, and unable to give the communal or the provincial exchequer any visible contribution towards the funds that have to be raised in order to meet the public expenditure. The existence of such small proprietors is not, on the whole, desirable.' In the province of South Trondhjem the great increase of the indebtedness of the landowners is ascribed in part to the subdivision of property by the creation of _Myrmoend_, literally 'bogmen' (bog-trotters?), or men supplied gratuitously, in recent times, with small plots of waste land, for the purpose of qualifying them as voters. Subdivision has likewise resulted from the partition of holdings in common, which, according to Dr. Broch, formed, in 1870, 13.4 per cent. of all the properties in Norway; principally in the Western Provinces, from the Naze to the Fiord of Trondhjem, where they constituted at that period, on the average as much as 30 per cent. of the landed property. Under a law passed in 1857, those lands are now divisible or exchangeable, and it appears from the report of the Prefects that the demands in that direction cannot be satisfied by the Government officials with sufficient promptness. In the province of South Trondhjem, for instance, about 40 per cent. of the properties were still held in common in 1875, but between 1876 and 1880 the partition of such lands was advancing 'at the rate of about twenty farms per annum.'