Originally a house drawn on the map told the crown how many inhabitants there were in the realm and – most importantly – how much tax they could afford to pay. The ruler and his subjects did not always see eye-to-eye in this respect.

The 17th century was a desolate time, plagued by long periods of cold weather, famine (known in Finland as 'the great hunger years’) and wars. Food was in scarce supply and many peasants went hungry. In the eyes of the crown a house that could not pay its due taxes was unoccupied. Such houses were recorded in the cadastre as being ”öde”, untenanted. If an estate could not meet its taxes for three successive years, it was taken over by the crown, which appointed a new tenant.

The fate of families who were not able to pay their taxes and lost their homes is often impossible to track. Peasant families occasionally joined together to form a larger group, which made it easier to bear up under the tax burden. This practice was particularly common in eastern and northern Finland where folk had to labour harder to keep body and soul together.

Summer was the season for romance and courting for agricultural folk. The son and heir of an important landowner had no difficulty in finding a bride. Farmhands and other landless folk were often less lucky.

In the eyes of the crown, the most important duty of its subjects – apart from their duty to pay taxes – was to multiply. A greater populace paid more taxes, pushed back the boundaries of settled land and provided men for the defence of the realm.

The eldest son was destined to continue the farm, while a daughter usually received her portion in the form of clothing, household linen and a cow upon her marriage. Since dividing the estate into smaller farms was forbidden by law, younger brothers often went unmarried but continued to work on their brother’s farm.

The ban on division of farms was originally intended to keep farms big enough to support the family, which included several adult members and servants. This way the crown steered farms towards self-sufficiency and promoted the colonisation of remote areas.

Piika, renki, muonamies, mäkitupalainen, loinen, hyyryläinen, koturi, ruotu-ukko - all these words refer to someone without any land of his or her own.

The wealth of such terms reflects the stratification of society, with the landless on the bottom rung. They eked out an existence by taking on what work they could find, by fishing and foraging; when times were hard, they were forced to turn to begging.

The gulf between the landowners and the landless class deepened further in the second half of the 18th century, at which time a major land reform was carried out and fields, meadows and forests were apportioned to individual owners. Traditionally, forests had been the shared property of the entire village, and anyone could take wood for the family’s needs. After the land reform, forest owners were able to sell wood and grow rich, while the straits of the landless people became even more dire than before.

Before the 1757 land reform, villages consisted of houses clustered close together. Often the houses were strung out along a waterway, like in the village of Topeno in Loppi in southern Finland.

Traditionally, villages were formed of a cluster of houses huddling together or following a water course. The proponents of the land reform turned their backs on traditional villages, accusing them of being morally degenerate. The most hard-working, cleanest and sober peasants occupied houses outside the village, in the middle of their own fields outside the village .

The idea of moving out of the village was slow to take root among landowners. Practical, labour-saving reforms such as drainage proved a more effective incentive than upholding moral values.

Visions of a new stone cowshed sometimes served as the final incentive for completing land rearrangements. As their standard of living improved, the 19th-century farmers could afford to build in stone. A stone cowshed across the farmyard signified both wealth and a change in the mindset.

Farms became production facilities, and old practices were replaced by new methods in the name of efficiency. Landowners distanced themselves from the village community, both geographically and mentally. The nature of the Finnish village landscape changed, and traditional forms of cooperation declined.

A cadastral survey map of the Pekkala farm’s leasehold arrangements in Lieksa in Eastern Finland in 1921–22.

By the beginning of the 20th century, public opinion had turned against land leasing. The problems of crofters and the landless were taken up by the government which believed that social unrest would subside, if - instead of uncertain farming contracts - people had fields of their own to cultivate.

The elevation of the formerly-landless crofters to freeholders lessened the polarisation of society. Rural areas had grown increasingly prosperous throughout the 19th century, but the wealth was unevenly distributed, which further emphasised the class division among the rural population. Acts defining land ownership helped level off the differences. The former peasants and the former landless were all farmers, from now on.

The new independent farms were often small and only yielded a meagre subsistence. Their importance went far beyond the actual acreage, however. Ownership of land gave the freeholder a level of autonomy over his lands and the opportunity to make an income independent of others.

The first building erected by the settlers – usually a sauna – often served as a temporary shelter. A laundry day at the Kumakari family’s new holding in Taivalkoski in northern Finland. Photo: Eino Jokinen.

After World War II, the agricultural sector was going through hard times. Families that had acquired their freehold under the Land Acquisition Act had their hands full. New fields were cleared largely by hand and without external help.

The Karelian evacuees, used to a different natural environment and different work methods, faced a particularly challenging situation. Different practices and linguistic and cultural differences were a source of confusion among the local population and the immigrants alike.

The nation began to recover from the war and construction sites of all sizes sprang up everywhere. Houses were restored, new ones built and new fields were cleared wherever you looked. There were children everywhere, too. The post-war years saw the birth of the baby boom generation and the erection of identical small houses all over the country.

New settlement initiatives led to an explosion in the number of small-scale farms. The government offered land to evacuees and war veterans, which increased social cohesion. Putting up the walls of your own house made the war seem to recede, and helped folk put the war behind them.

Finnish society and landscape underwent major changes due the structural change that started in the 1960s. The post-war reconstruction period saw the birth of the baby boomer generation and the erection of many identical-looking small houses all over the country. Photo: Eino Jokinen.

Thanks to the legislative efforts in the early 20th century, agriculture and small-scale farming remained the cornerstone of Finnish society for several decades – but the harder it fell when the structural change began in the 1960s.

The countryside emptied of people. Many left their newly built homes to seek their fortune – in the form of a brand new Volvo car – in Sweden. Some also returned; the successful ones in their Volvo, having acquired not only passable Swedish skills and clogs to wear but also a little something in their pockets.

In the meantime the family had given up farming: fields had been left to lie fallow and the cattle slaughtered, and the farmer and his wife retired to the village. The car in the yard was replaced with a newer model, yet the home farm remained a place of memory. Many farms became the family’s shared holiday home.

Some farms only live in the aroma of fresh rye bread – an aroma in which the Finnish rural culture is still alive and strong. Despite their ideals, the number of Finns living in a house of their own by the lakeside is decreasing steadily. Many still spend their holidays in the country, however, and a holiday cottage of one’s own is still the number one dream.