282 EUROPE 



laurustinus, oleander, and many others. Agriculture 

 affords here most varied resources : wheat, maize, and 

 rice, cotton and tobacco, lucerne and carob, orange and 

 lemon, almond and fig, walnut and chestnut, grape 

 and olive ; the number of ornamental plants, trees, 

 shrubs, undershrubs, perennials, and bulbs is even 

 larger. 



Typical Mediterranean vegetation generally extends 

 up the slopes of the surrounding highlands to about 

 2,800 feet above sea-level. It is succeeded by a belt of 

 mixed summer-green woodlands, among which oaks play 

 a prominent part, while the cedar is a notable type in 

 the south-west and in the east (Atlas, Lebanon, and 

 Taurus). 



The destruction of forests in this region is even more 

 complete and extensive than in central and western 

 Europe, and has been attended by more serious conse- 

 quences by disturbing the water-supply, exposing and 

 clearing away the soil, reducing whole mountain sides 

 to the bare, rocky core : the whole region has been 

 impoverished thereby and in places entirely ruined. 

 Among those countries which have suffered severely, 

 because the rainfall is scantier, Spain may be mentioned. 

 Over a great portion of its surface the yearly precipita- 

 tion does not reach 20 inches: the forests having been 

 all but wiped out, the sierras have been converted into 

 stony and rocky wastes: rain-water, instead of being 

 retained and distributed regularly by the vegetation 

 of the highlands, is allowed to rush away, unchecked, 

 to the sea, so that the rivers are either dried up or in 

 flood, and agriculture, except in the irrigated lowlands 

 or huertas of Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia, &c, is 

 rendered rather precarious. Spain is further remarkable 

 for its arid esparto grass-lands, which recall the Algerian 



