In some parts of Sweden it is the custom for the women of the farm household to help with the work in the fields. The planting and harvesting season is short and all hands are needed to cut and gather the grain that means the living for the family and animals during the long winter months. It is also the custom in rural Sweden for the women to care for the animals and do the barn chores in addition to the regular daily housework. The farms in Sweden are usually small. The farmer cannot afford to purchase tractors, reapers and mowing machines. He must cut

his grain by hand, using a scythe or sickle. In this view the barley cut by this slow, tiresome method. This does not indicate that the farmer is not progressive, but rather that the kind of soil, the climate and the size of his farm do not make the purchase of expensive machinery possible. This is not a wasteful method of cutting grain for every foot of ground is gone over very carefully. This scene is fairly typicak of the rocky hillside, the barren farm, the kind of buildings and the type of people on the farms in the mountainous regions of the Scandinavian peninsula.