Before proceeding to discuss the chief races of men in Europe, something must be said of its cultivated plants and animals. Originally, doubtless, the various human groups 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 so complete an intermixture that it is only possible to a very small extent to disentangle the different elements which have gone to the making of present day civilisation. Nevertheless, as climatic differences remain and still determine minor differences, it seems worth while to consider briefly the distribution of cultivated plants and domesticated animals at the present day.

Europe has been so strongly influenced by the neighbouring land-masses of which it forms a part, that we must begin with a few words about them.

The great continent of Asia, of which Europe, as we have seen, is but a peninsula, can be divided into a series of zones, distinguished alike by climate and by vegetation. To the north we have the cold tundra region, passing to the south into the forest region. The 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 south of the Asiatic forest stretches a zone of steppes passing into desert, and even into tundra in the elevated regions of Central Asia. The steppe region, as we have already indicated, enters Europe by way of Russia and pushes a long arm up the Danube into Hungary.

South of the Asiatic steppes and deserts comes an interrupted band of warm temperate or tropical forest, luxuriant to the east where there are summer rains, scanty and scrub-like to the west, where Asia meets the Mediterranean.

The steppes and desert of Asia are populated, scantily enough, with wandering pastoral nomads, who constantly tend to overflow from their own region into those of the surrounding agricultural populations. These agricultural populations are concentrated in three areas, all specially favoured by nature. To the east the summer rains, the luxuriant indigenous flora, and the presence of great river valleys, that is, of naturally fertile regions, led to the early establishment of agricultural populations in China and India. Further to the west, the fertile valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates early saw the founding of a great civilisation. This region, the Mesopotamia 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 countries. There is much similarity of climatic conditions, and for our purpose it is sufficient to note that the cultivated plants of the Mediterranean basin fall into three main categories. There are, first, the plants specially adapted to its climate; these are either native or were introduced from the countries close at hand. Second, there are many plants, much less perfectly adapted to conditions of drought, and therefore often demanding irrigation in summer, which were introduced from the Far East, after they had been cultivated there for long periods. Thirdly, and much fewer in number, there are the plants introduced, at a relatively late date, from America.

Of the first group the most important are the cereals barley and wheat, and the olive and the vine. These four have been known in the area from the earliest times, and they still form the basis of the diet of Mediterranean peoples. Bread, olive oil to replace the butter used by pastoral peoples, wine as a beverage, with fresh grapes and the dried forms of raisins and currants, these early made life possible in the Mediterranean area.

Barley is older than wheat, and is more productive but less valuable. It is now largely grown in the basin of the Mediterranean as a food for horses, instead of oats 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 still used to make bread in some other parts of Europe, e. g. in Scandinavia, and is also of importance outside the Mediterranean as the origin of fermented beverages.

Wheat is the most valuable bread plant which exists, both on account of its proteid content and on account of its digestibility. It demands a warm dry period for ripening, with much sunshine, and is well 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 excessive drought of summer sets in. Like barley it has always been associated with plough culture, the animal used being the ox. According to most authorities plough culture originated in Mesopotamia.

The vine and olive are apparently both indigenous to the Mediterranean, and both are well adapted to withstand drought. In regard to the vine there are several interesting points. To the traveller from the north it is most familiar in France or Germany, where it is grown on sunny slopes, usually terraced 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 parasites is greater, yet, curiously enough, the Mediterranean countries do not produce the finest wines. This seems to be partly because the climate does not permit of the long storage necessary for maturing to take place. The cool cellars, so important in the wine industry further north, are here absent.

To the four plants which we have mentioned we must add such forms as the fig, which if not indigenous was of very early introduction; garlic, greatly valued as a flavouring matter; various kinds of pulse; sesame; millet, once widely grown though no longer important, and flax, known from remote antiquity.

The second group, that comprising plants introduced from the Far East, includes many valuable fruit trees, which in the region of the absolutely rainless summer mostly require irrigation. The peach came from China in the time of Alexander the Great; the various citrus fruits, lemon, orange, lime, citron, etc., now so characteristic a feature, 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 with it the cultivation of the silkworm, so important in many regions. From the Far East also came the sugar-cane, very important till the recent development of the sugar beet industry. Cotton also was probably introduced from the Far East, which thus supplied many cultivated plants and has enormously enriched life for Mediterranean man.

Of the American plants of late introduction the most interesting is maize, which fed the somewhat limited indigenous civilisation of North America. Maize requires a warm climate with much sunshine, but needs much moisture during its short growing season. It is not a very valuable cereal, but it is enormously productive and therefore cheap. Generally it may be said to be used as food by 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 increase the rainfall, as in parts of Greece, or where the land is rendered valueless for wheat by winter flooding, there maize is grown. Generally it occurs within the Mediterranean area wherever the necessary water occurs naturally or can be supplied cheaply. It forms a very important part of the food of the poor in North Italy, for example, but not in the south, where water is too costly.

Two other important plants of American origin are tobacco and the potato. The latter plant is little grown in the Mediterranean, but a considerable amount of tobacco is produced. Another American plant, the prickly pear, besides furnishing an edible fruit, is important as a hedge plant within the area.

Cereals in the Mediterranean are grown, as we have seen, on ploughed land, as elsewhere. A more characteristic form of cultivation is garden-culture, practised where water can be obtained for irrigation. Such gardens consist primarily of fruit trees, all the citrus fruits, peaches, 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 the fruit trees many different kinds of vegetables, such as garlic, cucumbers, leeks, salad plants, many sorts of melons, tomatoes, egg-plants, beans, and peas, etc., are grown. Elsewhere one may see corn sown beneath the olive trees, and the vine sharing the same ground with them.

The picture of Mediterranean life may be completed by adding a few words about the domesticated animals. These are naturally in essence the same as those further north, but their relative numbers and the uses to which they are put are different.

The dog and cat both occur, but the former has little importance in the pastoral industries, and is largely a watch animal, insufficiently fed, and therefore important as 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 still more important than the horse, partly, no doubt, because both are hardier, and the problem of food is a difficulty in the largely pastureless Mediterranean region.

Few camels now occur in Europe, where they have been always closely associated with Mahometans, appearing and disappearing with them.

The pasturage difficulty greatly reduces the importance of cattle, which are draught animals rather than a source of food. As draught animals cattle go back to the dawn of history, but their numbers are small and the use of either their flesh or their milk as food is insignificant. Philippson in his book on the Mediterranean 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 half as large again, has only 360,000. It is to be noted, however, that the irrigated plains of North Italy now support a considerable amount of cattle, whose milk gives rise to a considerable cheese industry; but, then, the olive will not grow in North Italy, which is therefore not strictly within the Mediterranean area.

The Arabs introduced the Indian buffalo which has spread considerably, and is now found in South Italy and the Balkan peninsula. The pig has been banished from parts of the region on religious grounds, but elsewhere 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 birds and fish, furnish the most important part of the animal food of the inhabitants. The milk furnishes cheese, which is an important element of diet, while leather, wool and hair are also important products.

The goats chiefly feed upon the young shoots of shrubs, and frequent the denser thickets, while the sheep browse upon the grasses and herbs to be found in the more open forms of maquis. The climate permits the animals to remain 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 regions a curious form of nomadism, to which the name of transhumance is given. Transhumance, still well developed in Spain, is the periodic and alternating displacement of flocks and herds between two regions of different climate.

As we have had frequent reason to remark, the rainlessness of the Mediterranean summer is locally modified by many causes, notably by elevation. Mountains may receive frequent showers, while the plains are parched and brown, and therefore there may be pasture on the mountains while there is none in the plains. On lofty mountains also the winter snow lingers long enough to promote the growth of summer pasture. While there are considerable herds of sheep and goats, then, it may be necessary for the flocks and their keepers to travel to the mountains in summer and back to the plains in winter. In Spain these periodic migrations, now largely made by means of the railway, formerly took 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 North Africa some form of pastoral nomadism, with the social polity which comes from pastoral nomadism, was the natural result of the physical and climatic conditions, and Spain, like the lands of the eastern part of Europe, has been constantly liable to have its nascent agriculture destroyed by incursions of such pastoral nomads. In both cases the slow victory of the agriculturists, marked by many temporary reverses, affords an extraordinarily interesting chapter in human history. A stable civilisation must always be based upon agriculture, but every disturbance of an old and stable civilisation has temporarily encouraged the pastoral as contrasted with the agricultural industries.

In regard to the other animals of the Mediterranean, mention need only be made of the domesticated birds. The fowl has long been known; it is believed to have been introduced from the East eight centuries B.C. Both the eggs and 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 become important. Pigeons are everywhere abundant, sometimes so much so that their manure is extensively used as a fertiliser. We have already mentioned silkworms, and students of classical history know that bees have long been kept.

If we sum up what has been said about Mediterranean cultivated plants, we may note that these have been derived partly from native plants, partly from plants native to the warm forest country of eastern Asia, and partly from American plants. Regarding 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 west. The temperate forest of Asia has produced no great civilisation, and the civilisation of the temperate forest zone of Europe has owed much to the earlier civilisation of the Mediterranean, with which it has always had free communication.

This free communication has taken place chiefly by means of the Mediterranean seaboard of France, especially by means of the great Rhone valley, which forms a natural highway to the north. France, with both an Atlantic and a Mediterranean seaboard, has been the natural intermediary between the Mediterranean scrub land, with its characteristic civilisation, and the temperate forest region, with its colder climate, and its greater rainfall, which produce a corresponding difference in the cultivated plants.

We have seen that wheat is the great bread plant of the Mediterranean, and it is interesting to note that in this respect France is almost purely Mediterranean. It is, above all, the country of white bread, which plays a very important part in the dietary of the people. In ordinary years the country produces nearly as much wheat as it consumes.

In addition to this large use of wheat as a bread plant, France shows strong Mediterranean influence in the part which wine plays in the dietary of the people, in the variety of vegetables, especially kinds of pulse, which 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 Midi is of course definitely Mediterranean in culture, but just as the vine extends far to the north and west so also do Mediterranean influences extend far beyond the region of Mediterranean climate and Mediterranean flora.

But fertile as much of France is, it must not be regarded as consisting of nothing but fields of waving wheat. To complete and correct the picture we must add that, as in Russia, considerable amounts of buckwheat are grown for use as human food. Buckwheat, the “black wheat” of the French, perhaps introduced by the Arabs, is not a true cereal, but a relative 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 luxury. Oatcakes in lowland Scotland, “black bread” in well-to-do households in Germany, are other similar instances of the reappearance of a despised food-stuff as a luxury. Such foods become luxuries when they can be used to supplement, not to replace, white bread. Most of the buckwheat of France, however, is now grown as food for domesticated animals.

Again, fruit trees are extensively grown in France as in the Mediterranean region, with a gradual increase in the forms which require more moisture and less heat as we travel northwards. The typically Mediterranean forms early disappear, 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 good example, but throughout Europe generally this change takes place, culminating in the enormous wealth of wild berries—cranberries, whortleberries, and so on, which is a characteristic feature of the Scandinavian uplands in late summer.

As we travel to the north-west also, with the increase in the rainfall and the consequent increase in pasturage, the number of cattle increases, and with them the increased use of beef as food, and the increased use of cows’ milk and milk products. This is well seen in the broad fields of Normandy, while still further west, in the British Islands, pastures become more and more extensive, and only the existence 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 England, with a climate very different from that which wheat experiences elsewhere, has a yield per acre greater than that of any other country in the world. France, despite her warmth and sunshine, only gets an average of 19 bushels to the acre from her wheat fields, while in England, where wheat can only be grown at a profit when the conditions are especially favourable, the average yield is 30 bushels per acre.

In those parts of Europe where the climate or soil does not suit cereals, even such cereals as oats and rye, there is a tendency for these to be partially replaced as the basis of the 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 Mediterranean regions generally it is unimportant. Similarly, towards the north the “fowl in the pot” tends to be replaced by fish, in the case of those who cannot afford beef or mutton.

In the more northern regions also, with their relatively large rainfall, root crops play a very important part. Most of these are grown for the domestic animals, as turnips, mangels, swedes, etc., a phenomenon which does not occur in the Mediterranean area to any extent; but the sugar beet, whose cultivation is spreading greatly in northern and central Europe, is of course grown for its yield of sugar.

We have seen that wine is the universal drink through the greater part of France, and this in spite of the fact that the northern limit of the vine, so far as wine-making is concerned, is in France about lat. 47½°, that is, about the north of the Loire. In Germany, the vine reaches to the east, in the Province 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 replaced by beverages made by the fermentation of cereals or other plant products rich in starch. Throughout Germany, as throughout much of England, beer is the characteristic drink, and associated with it we have the growth of hops, used as a flavouring material. Further north stronger beverages tend to be used.

Another plant which is widely grown in the more northerly parts of Europe, especially in Russia and the Baltic countries, is flax, which, though originally Mediterranean, is now grown for its fibre chiefly in the north, partly because it is especially suited for flat moist land.

Having now looked at the cultivated plants of the Mediterranean in their bearing on the life of the inhabitants, and compared with them the plants cultivated in extra-Mediterranean areas, let us 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 the progress of civilisation. There can be no doubt that such pastoral folk have repeatedly invaded Europe, and have there undergone modifications owing to the different conditions which prevail.

Of pastoral folk in the unmodified form the Kirghiz of the Asiatic steppes form perhaps the best example. They are pure nomads, wandering about in search of pasture for their numerous herds, and dwelling in a movable tent, or yurt, which can be readily carried from one place to another. The herds consist of horses, sheep, goats, cattle, and camels, and the females of all these animals are milked. 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 traveller Brehm, and as it was written some fifty years ago, matters have doubtless changed considerably since, but it remains as the typical picture of the nomadic pastoral life. In the smaller spaces of densely populated Europe it would of course be impossible, and here pastoral nomadism is mostly replaced by that modified form known as transhumance upon which we have already touched.

As the European peoples of Asiatic origin are specially found on high ground, we may conclude by contrasting briefly with the above the life 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 family may possess as many as four houses. Thus in some of the valleys tributary to the Rhone in the canton Valais the following conditions occur.

There is first the true village, where each house is a miniature homestead, with dwelling, cow-house, hayloft, and granaries or store-houses. Round about are fields, where rye, the characteristic cereal, is grown, with some fodder plants. Higher up the valley is the spring pasture or “mayen,” whither the cows are driven in May, to feed until the alps or high pastures are clear of snow. At the mayen there are cow-houses, and also human habitations, though not of an elaborate type. Further up, 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 the use of wine from the Mediterranean peoples. The large part played in their diet by milk products, especially various forms of cheese, must be an inheritance from their nomad ancestors, while the rye, which is their bread plant, is also a heritage from Asiatic ancestors. The occurrence of four sets of dwellings instead of a movable one is an adaptation to life in a settled community, confined to a limited space. The whole social polity is thus a curious example of a transitional condition.

We have thus, in successive chapters, shown that in Europe three chief zones of vegetation exist, the Mediterranean scrub land, the temperate forest zone, the steppe or pasture land, 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. Now it is interesting to note, what cannot be a pure coincidence, that in Europe three races of men exist, which show a certain rough correspondence to the three zones of vegetation.

The Mediterranean type of vegetation and climate is associated with a particular race, to which the name of Mediterranean has been given. The race is by no means confined to the Mediterranean region—we find representatives 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 basin. Curiously enough, also, its presence in western Ireland is associated with the presence of certain representatives of the Mediterranean flora, notably the arbutus or strawberry tree and St. Dabeoc’s heath.

The characteristic inhabitants of the temperate forest region of Europe are the members of the race called Teutonic or Nordic, whose particular type of civilisation is deeply stamped by the lessons they learnt in their early struggle with the forest.

Finally, the steppe and pasture lands, whether in parts of Russia, in the Hungarian plain, or in the Alps and in the uplands of Brittany and Central Europe, etc., tend 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, though it occurs in lowlands to the east as well as in uplands to the west. This race seems to be accompanied throughout Europe by plants and animals of Asiatic origin.

The full meaning of this association between racial peculiarities and types of vegetation cannot perhaps be formulated meantime, but it is interesting to note that there are some curiously close connections between human life and the distribution 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 the town of Sion, and beyond, without any obvious cause, German prevails. It has been pointed out recently that the eastward extension of the French language here marks also the eastward extension of the sweet chestnut—a curious coincidence.

Again, the same writer points out that the battle-ground between the French and German peoples round the Rhine is the region where the growth of the sweet chestnut as a planted tree reaches its eastward limit. Such facts must not, of course, be over-emphasised. Both must indicate a climatic change, but it can hardly be supposed that this change of climate is sufficient to affect man directly. It seems at least justifiable to point out that every human group which reaches any degree of civilisation and stability must depend for its permanence 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 elephant, seem to be minor illustrations of this fact. Given, then, an evolving group spreading over the surface of the globe, and taking with it its characteristic plants and animals, it is probable enough that such a change of climate, even a minor change, as may be sufficient to render it impossible to cultivate these plants, or to rear these animals, may give a definite and more or less permanent check to the spread of the race. There is at least some evidence to this effect, and it gives an additional interest to the study of plant geography.

We have limited ourselves in this chapter practically to a consideration of the European area, because the existing cultivated plants and domesticated animals of North America are almost all derived from Europe, with the exceptions already indicated, and a few others not of great importance, and their distribution in America is determined by the same conditions as in Europe.