Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 2 (2008), pp. 167–188

The development of Swedish commercial dairy production in the late nineteenth century should not be regarded as a distinct shift from one kind of production to another, nor did it imply a change from a subsistence to a cash economy. On the basis of an investigation of an estate archive from Krusenberg, this article aims at a more nuanced interpretation of this process. It reveals that production for self-sufficiency continued side-by-side with commercial butter production. The use of milk on the estate increased over time, chiefly through the continued use of milk as a means of payment for farm labour. The strategy on this particular estate illustrates a more general tendency in Swedish agriculture around the turn of the century. 

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