ver in 2013, obtained from aerial photos (Figure 2h), was used to estimate the proportion of the total mire area that today is arable land or forest. We selected all polygons classified as ‘arable and pasture land’ or ‘forest land’ and then used the GIS software to clip the areas which coincided with the total mire area from 1880. In this way, we assessed the proportion of the total mire area that has undergone long-term land-class change.
The original total mire area, defined as the sum of all polygons classified as ‘mire’, ‘mire meadow’, or ‘peat pit’ on the enclosure map of Abborrtjärn village from 1880, was 273 ha or 15% of the study area. Mire meadows covered 60 ha (22% of the total mire area), and the peat pit 3.3 ha (about 1%), while the rest (77%) is labeled as unused mire in this paper.
According to the map from 1702, the farmers of Degerfors were using a number of nearby mire meadows but had not yet extended their impact into our study area. In 1785, the impact had become more widespread and included a mire partly located in the study area (Vorrmyran) (Figures 1 and 2). About 40% of Vorrmyran was used as a meadow in 1785 (Figure 2a), but because the managed part belonged to Degerfors, it was excluded from the village territory of Abborrtjärn when it was defined in 1880 (Figure 2c) and is therefore also excluded from our study area. In other words, we have no indications that any part of the mires in the study area was used for a particular purpose during the 1700s, although human activities were clearly increasing in the surroundings.
In 1805, the village of Abborrtjärn used mire meadows covering about 30 ha, of which 27 ha were inside our study area. Of the latter, a little more than 3 ha was classified as ‘land to be cleared’ (sw. ‘röjningsland’) and about 2.5 ha partly so, which means that they were not yet managed as meadows. However, as all of these areas were included in the evaluation on which taxes were based, we assume that they were prepared soon after 1805, and we have included them in the mire meadow area of that year, corresponding to 10% of the total mire area. In 1880, the area of mire meadows used by farmers in Abborrtjärn had grown to 60 ha, or 22% of the total mire area (Figure 3).
When the productivity of mire meadows and unused mires was compared, as graded in 1880, we found that mire meadows had grades from 1 (=best grade) to 50 (median 11.5), whereas unused mires had grades from 8 to 100 (median 50) (Figures 4 and 5). There were thus both considerable differences and considerable overlap between used and unused mires. Meadows with good grades represented very small areas, whereas most unused mires were considered to be of low value and covered much larger areas. When the mire-meadow area peaked in the late 1800s, all of the best-grade and most medium-grade mires were being routinely harvested (Figure 4).
When we compared the rankings of the 25 mire meadows that were classified in both 1805 and 1880, four meadows had risen 10 positions or more, suggesting that some measures had been taken to enhance their productivity. In only one case, however, do we have a record of this, namely Klockarmoren, which went from the second-lowest position in 1805 to the absolute top in 1880. Although nothing is said in the official documentation, local tradition has it that Klockarmoren was illegally reclaimed in the early 1800s by a farmer from a neighboring village (Anon., 2015), and today it is arable land. Assuming active human intervention, such as fertilization, as the cause of the increased productivity of all four abovementioned meadows, the area affected would be around 4.5 ha, or less than 2% of the total mire area.
We found no traces of catchwork irrigation systems in the study area, but we identified two cases where the mire meadow area had been increased through artificial flooding. The records from the timber floating association state that two dams existed in 1864, when timber floating was just beginning. Both of these dams were located at the outlet of lakes surrounded by mire meadows, Bergtjä