No country is better adapted to Botany

This part of Finland is not so extensive as Swedish Finland. It is remarkable that in both countries the productions of nature are sooner ripe in the parts covered with forests, than on the sea-coast and on islands. There the people breathe a more salubrious air. In the towns on the sea, only one of sixty dies annually, while there is born one of forty three. No country is better adapted to Botany. There are enumerated near thirteen hundred different kinds of plants, besides a great number of herbs fit for divers uses. They raise also several kinds of grain, such as wheat, rye, oats, barley, but all of them, especially wheat; in quantities too scanty for the supply of the inhabitants. The interval between seed-time and harvest is from ten to twelve weeks. The Finns apply principally to the culture of tobacco, which thrives uncommonly in their country. As to trees, those which bear fruit, such as Cherry and Plumb-trees, are almost always destroyed by the rigours of winter; the Mulberry is planted and thrives only on the islands ; the Oak does not grow beyond 61, and the Ash beyond 62 degrees.

Chantreau: Philosophical, political, and literary travels in Russia during the years 1788 & 1789. Volume first. 1794

(Anthony Cross (In the land of the Romanovs) tulkitsee matkakertomuksen toisen käden tiedoksi.)