 the process of enclosure in 1880, so that map was used to define the total mire area of the study as the sum of all unused mires, mire meadows, and peat pits. Unused mires were delimited with orange lines on the map (Figure 2c), and in the tables they were usually classified as ‘myra’, sometimes as ‘mosse’, ‘myrsly’, ‘myrländig’, ‘myrhals’ or any of a few other Swedish terms for different kinds of mires. Mire meadows were not as easily defined, because all kinds of meadows were delimited with green lines on the map and called ‘äng’. Therefore, we distinguished mire meadows from meadows on mineral soil through their location. Usually this was evident from the map tables, where mire meadows were located inside areas with names ending with ‘-myran’ (i.e., ‘the mire’ in the form typical of the dialects of northern Sweden). However, there were a few cases where such labels were absent, thus, we judged these as mire meadows or not based on their appearance on both historical and modern maps, as well as on aerial photographs. As for the peat pit, only one such area existed, and it was delimited by an orange line and unequivocally labeled ‘peat and moss pit’ (sw. ‘torf och måssetag’) on the map, and ‘mire pit’ (sw. ‘myrtag’) in the tables.
As to the other maps used in the study, the definition of mires and mire meadows was straightforward. On the map from 1702, each mire meadow was noted as ‘myrewald’ in the table, whereas a few other mires were roughly outlined on the map. The 1785 map contained two classes of mire; first the mire meadows, described as ‘meadows rendering sparse and less rewarding sedge hay on swampy and wet mires’ (sw. ‘slåtter gifva glest och mindre bördigt starrhö på sanka och våtländta myror’), second, the unused mires, ‘bogs, partly treeless, partly with small pine trees’ (sw. ‘måssar dels skoglöse dels med små tall beväxte’). In the map from 1805, hay harvested from mires was clearly defined as ‘mire hay’ (sw. ‘myrhö’), and the related areas were represented as drawings showing mires, so the classification was usually simple. The only ambiguity regarding the 1805 map was the borderline between mire meadows and meadows alongside creeks, because the latter were not included in this study. However, these issues could be solved through a careful consideration of the map’s descriptions and drawings.
The maps from 1785 (Figure 2a), 1805 (Figure 2b) and 1880 (Figure 2c) were scanned and then georeferenced using GIS software (ArcView 3.3 with Image Analysis) (the map from 1702 was excluded as it clearly did not include any mires in the study area). From the 1785 map, mire meadows and unused mires inside and adjacent to the study area were digitized, but when we saw that none of the mire meadows were located inside the study area, the data was not treated any further. The map from 1805 did not lend itself to georeferencing, because the mire meadows were rarely shown in their geographical locations. Regardless, all of the mire meadows on the 1805 map could be identified from their names and shapes, and the area of each meadow was given in the map tables, so the area of the mire meadows located inside the study area was simply summed from this information. From the georeferenced 1880 map, all mires—mire meadows, peat pits, and unused mires—were digitized manually into polygons, and the area of each one was calculated using GIS.
The detailed relative grading included in the map tables from 1880 was used to assess the proportion of mire meadows and unused mires of different productivity and to explore whether there was any difference between the two types of mire.
Furthermore, we tried to identify management efforts undertaken to increase the productivity of mire meadows through a comparison of the 25 meadows that were listed in both 1805 and 1880. Because the 1805 data consisted of absolute yield assessments whereas the gradings from 1880 were relative to each other, the two data sets could not be compared directly, so we created rankings. For 1805, a yield in kg/ha was calculated for each meadow, and we then ranked 