Modern Geography

which have mingled in Europe had each their own type of culture, based upon the possession and cultivation of particular animals and plants. The lapse of time has caused

r differences, it seems worth while to consider briefly the distribut

ighbouring land-masses of which it forms a part,

e Asiatic forest region is continuous with that of Europe, but while the European forest extends southward till Mediterranean conditions intervene, close to the sea of that name, the Asiatic forest has its southern limit in about the latitude of London. To the sou

temperate or tropical forest, luxuriant to the east where there are summer

of geographers, is very near the third area, the Mediterranean, though far enough removed to have a very scanty rainfall, which made irrigation a necessity for agriculture. Its inter-relations with the Mediterranean must have begun early, and, remembering that part of the Mediterranean itself is in Asia, we need not stop to discuss the vexed question as to whether the Mediterranean civilisation was largely indigenous, or originated in the continent of Asia. It is often difficult to ascertain whether plants which have long been grown in the Mediterranean area, and are well-fitted to it, are really indigenous there, or were brought to it from the Mesopotamian co

he earliest times, and they still form the basis of the diet of Mediterranean peoples. Bread, olive oil to replace the butter used by pastoral pe

ats which, like rye, is a cereal not well suited to the Mediterranean climate. As a bread plant it was early replaced in the Mediterranean by wheat, but it is sti

ll adapted to Mediterranean conditions. Here it is sown in the autumn, to enable it to take advantage of the "early and the latter rain," i. e. the autumn and spring rains, and ripens early before the

raced to prevent stagnant water from lying. In the Mediterranean, on the other hand, it is planted in hollows, or low-lying ground, which permits of the collection of water, for it will receive no summer rain. The vintage is more secure than further north, and the resistance to the attacks of parasi

was of very early introduction; garlic, greatly valued as a flavouring matter; various kinds of puls

ure, were introduced from China or India. India also gave rice, extensively cultivated during long ages, and still extensively consumed, though the facility with which communication with the East is now effected makes it relatively little grown, except in the plain of Lombardy, which is easily irrigated. China sent the white mulberry, and

y man only when necessity compels its use. It is thus employed by subject races, e. g. negroes, and by the poor in the warmer parts of Europe. In the Mediterranean it is not sufficiently valuable to be grown on irrigated land, and it will not grow without irrigation where the summer is rainless. Where there are summer rains, however, as in North Italy, or where mountain slopes increas

grown in the Mediterranean, but a considerable amount of tobacco is produced. Another American plant,

es, apricots, pomegranates, pistachio, almonds, and many other forms of nuts, plums, even apples and pears, being grown in this way. So productive is the ground once water is supplied, that plants are grown in association in a fashion hardly suggested in the north. Thus among th

e domesticated animals. These are naturally in essence the same as those further

a sanitary agent in that it devours garbage. Among the ungulates or hoofed animals, the ass was domesticated in the region long before the horse, and it and the mule are

ave been always closely associated with Maho

ean gives some striking figures to illustrate the difference in numbers between the cattle of the Mediterranean countries and those of Central Europe. Spain has only 2.1 million cattle, and yet it is scarcely smaller than Germany, which has 19 millions; Switzerland has 1,340,000 head of cattle, and Greece, which is about

where it chiefly thrives where oak forests grow, the acorn being an important part of its food. The really important ungulates, however, are sheep and goats, which are often very numerous, and which, apart from

n in the open during the whole year, and this prevents the collection of the manure for the arable lands. Further, the summer drought makes it difficult for even these hardy animals to obtain food, and necessitates in many reg

place by well-defined routes, along which the immense army of sheep, accompanied by a smaller army of attendants, passed twice a year, causing enormous destruction to the cultivated lands through which they passed. Everywhere the conflict between shepherd and husbandman is more or less acute, but it seems to have been especially acute in Spain, which is in some respects a link between Africa and Europe. Its constant liability to Arab invasion made agriculture especially difficult, while frequent wars favoured the pastoral industry; for flocks may be removed to a place of safety on an alarm, but agriculture must have some security before it can develop. In the semi-desert regions of

the flesh are of great importance as a source of food. In spite of Roman history, geese are relatively unimportant, as are also ducks, but the turkey, late introduction from America, is well suited to the climate and has becom

egarding for a moment the Eurasiatic continent as a whole, we may say that the old civilisations, both to the east and to the west, arose in the forest regions-in the monsoon forests to the east, in the drought-resisting forest or scrub of the

ghway to the north. France, with both an Atlantic and a Mediterranean seaboard, has been the natural intermediary between the Mediterranean scrub land, with its characte

espect France is almost purely Mediterranean. It is, above all, the country of white bread, which plays a very impo

are grown; in the fact that fowls and pork form a large part of the animal food consumed, and in that flax has been grown in considerable amounts for long ages, so that linen is an important part of household wealth. The

ive of the knot-grass of British fields. It is very easily grown, even on poor land, and in France replaces wheat where the conditions are unfavourable, or where agriculture is backward. It is not without interest to note that while its use in France as human food is an indication of extreme poverty, in the United States buckwheat cakes take a place as a

, while many kinds of plums, pears and apples increase in numbers and in value. As we travel northwards also, the various forms of berries, scarcely represented in the south, increase in importance. The strawberries of Brittany form a g

ce of a well-marked "rain shadow" on the eastern seaboard, which is robbed of much of its rainfall by the hills of the west, makes the extensive growth of wheat possible in south-eastern England. With the increase of pasture, and the increased cold of winter, as compared with the Mediterranean area, we have stall-feeding, with the possibility of collecting manure for the fields. The consequence is that Engla

diet by plants requiring less sunshine and tolerant of greater moisture. Thus in Ireland and North Germany, the potato is a very important article of diet, while in France and in Med

for the domestic animals, as turnips, mangels, swedes, etc., a phenomenon which does not occur in the Mediterranean area to any extent

of Posen, a latitude of nearly 53° N., owing to the fact that the summers grow warmer as we pass eastward. Nevertheless, in Germany, as a general rule, wine is a luxury, the influence of Mediterranean culture being less felt than in France. Throughout Germany, as throughout northern Europe generally, wine is re

ia and the Baltic countries, is flax, which, though originally Mediterranean, is now grown fo

conclude this chapter by a few words on the purely pastoral peoples. These do not now occur in Europe in unmodified form, but the Asiatic steppes still contain pastoral folk, diminishing with t

ed. The Kirghiz do not cultivate land, or only to a very slight extent, and practically do not eat bread, though flour and rice, obtained by barter, are employed by the richer. Milk and milk-products, with the flesh of the flocks, form the basis of the diet, and a milk-wine or koumiss, produced by the fermentation of milk, is the characteristic drink. This brief description is based upon that

of the pastoral folk of Switzerland. Here there is no yurt or movable tent, but the old conditions are suggested by the fact that each fami

again, there are necessarily huts near the high pastures, whither a few men only go with the cows as herds, and where the cheese is made. The fourth village is placed on the hot plain of the Rhone valley, and here are the vineyards whose produce gives the much-prized wine, and orchards which yield fruit. We find here therefore a curious combination of pastoral and agricultural life. Mostly of the race called Alpine, believed to be of Asiatic origin, these Swiss folk have borrowed the vine and

, and that as each of these is determined by climate, each, again, has special types of cultivated plants and domesticated animals, involving a special social polity in each case. N

resentatives of it, e. g. in western Ireland,-nor does it occupy the whole of that region, for in many places it is pressed hard by other races, but it reaches its fullest development within the Mediterranean b

bers of the race called Teutonic or Nordic, whose particular type of civilisation i

end to be occupied by a third race, which seems to have originated in the steppes of Asia, and to which the somewhat inappropriate name of Alpine has been given, th

ibution of vegetation. For instance, all travellers in Switzerland must have been struck by the curious fact that in following up the Rhone valley from the lake of Geneva to the Rhone glacier the French language is found to extend up to th

in the early stages on some special skill in the growing of certain cultivated plants, and the rearing of certain domesticated animals. We have much reason to believe that this skill is often difficult to acquire by other groups. The great difficulties which have been experienced in introducing e. g. Smyrna figs and dates into the United States; the fact that Europeans seem to find it impossible to manage camels without native help, and that they have been hitherto unable, despite most elaborate and costly experiments, to tame the African ele

d plants and domesticated animals of North America are almost all derived from Europe, with the exceptions already indicated,