The Iceland year-book - 01.01.1926, Blaðsíða 71

year is produced on uncultivated meadows, or on
alluvial plains near the river mouths, where the
yield is often incredibly great. Large schemes of
irrigation are at present in progress.
The central organizations (with sub-divisions
throughout the country) concerned with the ad-
vancement of agriculture and the fishing industry
respectively, are the Agricultural Society of Ice-
land ( Bunadarf jelag Islands), and the Fisheries
Association of Iceland (Fiskifjelag Islands). Both
are virtually official institutions.
General The restrictions which for two
Commercial centuries and a half had made Ice-
Information. landic trade a Danish monopoly,
and kept the people in abject
economic bondage, were finally removed in 1855.
Long after that date the hulk of Icelandic com-
merce naturally remained in Danish hands, but
for all that the effect of the change was immediate
and salutary. It was not until twenty or twenty-
five years later that Icelandic merchants began
to take any effective part in commercial activities;
since then however they have constantly been
gaining ground, until now the foreign merchants
in Iceland constitute an almost negligible minority.
At the close of the 19th century there were 204
commercial firms in Iceland, and of these one-
fourth were foreign. The total number has now
risen to about 800, of whom only 25 are counted
as non-Icelandic. Since the beginning of the pre-
sent century the trade with Great Britain has
vastly increased, and during the same time Ice-
landic trade methods have been thoroughly re-
65