Burn-beating as the technical basis of colonisation in Finland in the 16th and 17th centuries

Abstract

In the forest regions of northern Europe burn-beating has always been associated with the clearance of previously untilled land and human settlement. Colonisation based on burn-beating continued in Finland well into modern times, and burn-beating was practised in many places even after the period of first settlement. In Finland's eastern provinces of Savo and Karelia, it was still the predominant form of cultivation in the 18th century; in these provinces it played an essential role in farming into the early 19th century and it was not until the latter part of the century that burn-beating began to die out because of the rapid growth of the timber trade; it finally disappeared only in the early 20th century.