If the fire does its work properly, the whole of the space is covered with a layer of ashes; and when these have been slightly mixed with soil by means of a light plough, the seed is sown.
On the field prepared in this original fashion is sown barley, rye, or flax, and the harvests, nearly always good, sometimes border on the miraculous.

Barley or rye may be expected to produce about sixfold in ordinary years, and they may produce as much as thirty-fold under peculiarly favourable circumstances.

The fertility is, however, short-lived.

If the soil is poor and stony, not more than two crops can be raised; if it is of a better quality, it may give tolerable harvests for six or seven successive years.

In most countries this would be an absurdly expensive way of manuring, for wood is much too valuable a commodity to be used for such a purpose; but in this northern region the forests are boundless, and in the districts where there is no river or stream by which timber may be floated, the trees not used in this way rot from old age.