If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 462

Aurland, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, looking south, the agricultural and horticultural school

Dick Thompson had a cousin who owned a farm in this general area of Aurland, Norway.  This used postcard was pasted on the same page of his scrapbook with others from 1951 when he made a trip to Norway to visit his sister and other relatives.  The black & white Normann photograph shows the view looking south at the valley with the agricultural and horticultural school in the background.  Carl and Arne Normann, father and son, were among Norway’s most prolific producers of postcards in Norway.  From 1946 to 1990 Arne traveled all over Norway taking photos for postcards.  The project resulted in over 300,000 pictures of Norwegian scenes.  The identifying number is printed at the lower left:  12-8-35.

The school shown in the photo was the idea of Jens Lunde, a county agronomist, who in 1915 wrote and submitted a plan proposing the establishment of a private agricultural and horticultural school in Nordre Bergenhus a county that was divided and renamed in 1952 to become Sogn og Fjordane and Hordaland that have now this year, 2020, been re-merged and called Vestland.  The school, established in 1917, was designed to provide practical and theoretical training plus additional practical work on the land attached to the school.  The two-year program was open to young men and women age 18 and older and covered a variety of topics including but not limited to bookkeeping, surveying, chemistry, physics, plant science, forestry, and animal studies.  Today, at a little more than 100 years old, the school is still active with the training primarily in organic farming.

 For additional information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurland
https://www.dailyscandinavian.com/the-best-of-postcards-from-norway/
https://www.aurland.kommune.no/sogn-jord-og-hagebruksskule-sjh-100-aar.5941592-155908.html