and extends eastwards, while the Mediterranean region generally
is one of rainy winters and relatively dry summers. The consequence
is that with similar conditions of soil and superficial configuration
the Mediterranean region is agriculturally much less productive,
except where there are means of irrigation, than the corresponding
latitudes in the east of Asia and the east of North America, where
there are corresponding summer temperatures but an opposite
seasonal distribution of rainfall.
In connexion with the seasonal distribution of rainfall may be noticed the prevalence of sunshine and cloud. The map accompanying König’s paper on the duration of sunshine[1] shows on the whole, outside of the Mediterranean peninsulas, an increase from north-west to south-east (Orkney Islands, 1145 Sunshine. hours = 26% of the total possible; Sulina, 2411 hours = 55%). In the Mediterranean peninsulas the duration is everywhere great—greatest, so far as the records go, at Madrid, 2908 hours = 66%. Dr P. Elfert’s[2] map illustrating cloud-distribution in central Europe embraces the region from Denmark to the basin of the Arno, and from the confluence of the Loire and Allier to the mouths of the Danube.
The temperature of the continent has been illustrated by Dr Supan in an interesting series of maps based on actual observations not reduced to sea-level, and showing the duration in months of the periods within which the mean daily temperature lies within certain ranges (at or below 32° F.; 50°–68° F.; Temperature. above 68° F.).[3] The first of these maps strikingly illustrates the effect on temperature of the strong westerly winds of winter, and, in the south, that of winds from the Mediterranean Sea as well as the protection afforded to the Mediterranean countries against cold winds from the north by the barrier of mountains. South of the parallel of 60° there is no lowland area in the west of Europe where the average daily temperature is at or below the freezing point for as much as one month, and in the Mediterranean region only the higher parts of the mountains besides the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula are characterized by such prolonged frosts. On the other hand, on the parallel of 50° N. the duration of such low temperatures increases at first rapidly, afterwards more gradually, from west to east. The second map illustrating the duration of average daily temperatures between 50° and 68° F., that is, the temperatures favourable to the ordinary vegetation of the temperate zone, shows that the duration of such temperatures increases on the whole from south to north, and that by far the greater part of the continent south of 53° N. has at least six months within those limits, and south of 58° N. at least five months. The third of the maps shows that the high temperatures which it illustrates are prolonged for a month or more throughout the Mediterranean region, but outside of that region hardly anywhere except in the south-western plains of France, the Rhone valley and a large area in the south-east of Russia. Without doubt an important cause of the prolonged duration of high temperatures in this last area is the relatively long duration of sunshine already mentioned as shown by König’s map to be characteristic of south-eastern Europe.
Mention should here be made also of Brückner’s remarkable treatise on the variations of climate in time. Though it deals with such variations over the entire land-surface of the globe, a large proportion of the data are derived from Europe, for which continent, accordingly, it furnishes a great number of particulars with regard to secular variations in temperature, rainfall, the date of the vintage, the frequency of cold winters, the level of rivers and lakes, the duration of the ice-free period of rivers (in this case all Russian), and other matters. Those relating to the date of the vintage are of peculiar interest. They apply to 29 stations in France, south-west Germany and Switzerland, and for one station (Dijon) go back with few breaks to the year 1391; and as the variations of climate of which they give an indication correspond precisely to the indications derived from temperature and rainfall in those periods in which we have corresponding data for these meteorological elements, they may be taken as warranting conclusions with regard to these points even for periods for which direct data are wanting. A period of early vintages corresponds to one of comparatively scanty rains and high temperatures. It is accordingly interesting to note that the data referred to indicate, on the whole, for Dijon an earlier vintage for the average of all periods of five years down to 1435 than for the average of the periods of the same length from 1816–1880; but that the figures generally show no regular retardation from period to period, but more or less regular oscillations, differing in their higher and lower limits in different periods of long duration.
Much light has been thrown on the present state of agriculture in Europe by the publication of Engelbrecht’s Landbauzonen der aussertropischen Länder.[4] Of the two chief bread-plants of Europe, wheat and rye, wheat is cultivated as far north as about 69° N. both in Norway and Finland, but the limit Cultivated plants. of the area in which more wheat is cultivated than rye to the west and south, more rye than wheat to the east and north, runs parallel to the west coast of the Netherlands and Belgium, then strikes south-eastwards so as to include nearly all Germany except Alsace-Lorraine and the south-west of Württemberg, also eastern Switzerland, nearly all the Alpine provinces of Austria and nearly the whole region north of the Carpathians, as well as the greater part of Bohemia within the area in which rye predominates, while in Russia the limit runs east-north-east from about 44° N. in the west to about 55° N. in the Urals. On one side of this line wheat makes up more than 80% of the entire grain area[5] in western Rumania, in Italy and a large part of the south-west of France, and from 40% to 60% in the south-east of England. Spelt is cultivated in the south-west of Germany, Belgium and northern Switzerland, on the middle Volga and in Dalmatia and Servia. Rye covers more than 50% of the grain area in the east of Holland and Belgium, in the north-west of Germany, in central and eastern Germany and in middle Russia. Oats are more cultivated than all varieties of wheat in Ireland, in the west and the northern half of Great Britain, in Finland and in the greater part of Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. Barley is more largely cultivated than oats both in the extreme north and the south of the continent. Maize is cultivated to a great extent in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula, in the south-west of France, in northern Italy and in the lands bordering the lower Danube; in many parts covering an area equal to or greater than that occupied by all grain crops. Millets (various species of panicum) are most extensively cultivated in the south-east of Europe. The kind of millet known as guinea-corn or durra (Sorghum vulgare Pers.), so extensively cultivated in Africa and India, is grown to a small extent on the east side and in the interior of Istria. Buckwheat is cultivated in the west and east of the continent—in the west from the Pyrenees to Jutland, in the east throughout southern and middle Russia. The potato is very largely cultivated in western, northern and central Europe, but has made comparatively little progress in Russia. The cultivation of lentils is most largely pursued in the west and south-west of Germany and in the south and north of France. That of lupines has spread with great rapidity since 1840 in the dry sandy regions of eastern Germany, where lupines have proved as well adapted for such soils as the more widely cultivated sainfoin has done for dry chalky and other limestone soils. Sugar beet is most largely cultivated in the extreme north of France and the adjoining parts of Belgium and in central Germany, to a less but still considerable extent in south-eastern Germany, northern Bohemia and the south-west of Russia. Flax, like other industrial plants, shows a tendency to concentrate itself on specially favourable districts. It is most extensively grown in Russia from the vicinity of Riga north-eastwards, even crossing in the north-east the 70th parallel of latitude; but it is also an important crop in the north-east of Ireland, in Belgium and Holland, in Lombardy and in northern Tirol. Hemp is more extensively cultivated in central and southern Europe, above all in Russia. Teasels are grown in various spots in the south-east of France and in south Germany. The cultivation of madder is not yet extinct in Holland and Belgium, that of weld (Reseda luteola), woad (Isatis tinctoria) and saffron not yet in France.
The vine can be grown without protection in southern Scandinavia, and has been known to ripen its grapes in the open air at Christiansund in 63° 7′; but its cultivation is of no importance north of 47½° on the Atlantic coast, 50½° on the Rhine, and from 50° to 52° in eastern Germany, the limit falling rapidly southwards to the east of 17° E. The olive, with its double crop, is one of the principal objects of cultivation in Italy, Spain and Greece, and is not without its importance in Portugal, Turkey and southern Austria. Tobacco is grown to a considerable extent in many parts of western, central and southern Europe, for the most part under government regulation. The most important tobacco districts are the Rhine valley in Baden and Alsace, Hungary, Rumania, the banks of the Dnieper, Bosnia and the south-west and other parts of France. The cultivation is even carried on in Sweden and Great Britain, but the most northerly area in which it occupies as much as 0.1% of the grain area is the Danish island of Fyen (Funen).
Hop-growing is hardly known in the south, but forms an important industry in England, Austria, Germany and Belgium. Among the exotics exclusively cultivated in the south are the sugar-cane, the cotton plant, and rice. The first, which is found in Spain and Sicily, is of little practical moment; the second holds a secondary position in Turkey and Greece; and the third is pretty extensively grown in special districts of Italy, more particularly in the valley of the Po. Even pepper is cultivated to a small extent in the extreme south of Spain. Of the vast number of fruit trees which flourish in different parts of the continent only a few can be mentioned. Their produce furnishes articles of export to Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. In Sardinia the acorn of the Quercus Ballota is still used as a food, and in Italy, France and Austria the chestnut is of very common consumption. In the Mediterranean region the prevailing forms—which the Germans conveniently sum together in the expression Südfrüchte, or southern fruits—are the orange, the citron, the almond, the pomegranate, the fig and the carob tree. The palm trees have a very limited range: the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) ripens only in southern Spain with careful culture; the dwarf palm (Chamaerops humilis) forms thickets along
- ↑ Nova Acta Leop. Karol. d. deutschen Akad. d. Naturforscher, vol. lxvii. No. 3 (Halle, 1896).
- ↑ Petermanns Mitteilungen (1890), pl. 11 (text pp. 137-145).
- ↑ Ib. (1887), pl. 10 (text pp. 165-172).
- ↑ Berlin, 3 vols. (one made up of maps), 1898–1899.
- ↑ By this term (Getreidefläche) Engelbrecht designates the area occupied by wheat and other varieties of triticum, rye, oats and barley.
