Book II. AGRICULTURE UNDER VARIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. J03 



Chap. I. 



Agriculture as influenced by Geographical Circumstances. 



1248. The influence of climate extends not only to the kind of plants and animals 

 to be reared, but also to the mode of rearing. A few useful plants are universal, and but 

 a few. Of those belonging to agriculture, we may enumerate most of the annual 

 pasture or hay grasses, and, of the cereal grasses, the wheat, rye, and barley. The 

 oat, the pea, bean, turnip, potato, and the perennial pasture grasses, will neither thrive 

 in very hot nor in very cold climates ; the maize, millet, and rice can only be grown in 

 warm countries, and the oat in temperate regions. The roots and fruits of what are 

 denominated hot climates, as the yam, plantain, bread-fruit, &c, are limited to them ; 

 and equally so the timber trees of temperate and torrid regions, as the oak and pine, the 

 mahogany and teak tree. 



1249. Animals as well as plants are affected by climate. Some animals are univer- 

 sal, as the ox and swine, which are found in every latitude ; others are limited in their 

 range, as the rein-deer, camel, elephant, and, considered as a domesticated animal, the 

 sheep. The horse and ass are nearly universal, but cannot be substituted for the rein- 

 deer. The sheep will exist in India and also in Greenland, but loses its useful charac- 

 ter in both countries ; in Greenland it requires protection during nine months of the 

 year, and in India the wool is changed to hair, and the carcass is too lean for the 

 butcher. 



1 250. The management required for both plants and animals depends materially on cli- 

 mate. It is not easy for a person who has never been out of Britain to conceive a just 

 idea of the aquatic culture even of Italy or Spain. In these countries though most crops, 

 whether of grain or roots, require watering, yet some in the rainy season may be obtained 

 in the usual way, as melons in Italy and onions in Spain. But in Arabia, Persia, and 

 India no culture can be undertaken without water, except in the upper regions of 

 mountains. The fundamental process of culture in these countries is to prepare the 

 surface for the reception of water, and its circulation in trenches and gutters, and to 

 procure the water by raising it from wells or rivers by machinery. Wherever the surface 

 cannot be irrigated, no regular culture need be attempted nor corn crop expected. Nature 

 in such situations produces periodical crops of annual succulents or bulbous-rooted plants ; 

 and man might, perhaps, to a certain extent, turn this circumstance of climate to account, 

 by changing the sorts of annual bulbs, &c, from such as are useless, to such as are 

 useful. The onion or edible crocus or cyperus might, perhaps, be substituted for the 

 ixia of the Cape ; the sesamum, or some rapid annual, furnishing useful seeds or 

 herbage, for numerous annual weeds ; and the cochineal cactus for the showy but useless 

 mesembryanthemums and stapelias of the African wastes. These, however, are only 

 suggestions. 



1251. Culture in the north of Eurojye depends for the most part more on draining lands 

 of their superfluous water, than on artificial supplies of that element. When irrigation 

 is applied it is limited entirely to grass lands ; and that not for the purpose of supplying 

 such lands with moisture, but for stimulating by manure held in solution by the water, 

 and for increasing or maintaining heat. The greatest care is requisite to prevent this 

 mode of watering from proving more injurious than useful ; but little danger results 

 from the application of water in hot countries, and there it is valuable by moderating 

 rather than increasing the temperature of the soil. Water in the north of Europe is 

 generally supplied in more than sufficient quantity by the atmosphere ; and, therefore, one 

 great object of the cultivator is to keep the soil thoroughly drained by surface gutters 

 and subterraneous conductors ; to keep it pulverised for the moisture to pass through, 

 and for the roots to extend themselves ; well stocked with manure to supply nourishment ; 

 freed from weeds, to prevent any of this nourishment from being wasted ; and to 

 admit the light, air, and weather to the useful plants. In the hot countries keeping the 

 soil free from weeds is generally a duty easily performed, and often rendered un- 

 necessary ; for whenever water is withheld, even in the south of Spain (745.), every 

 living plant is burned up with drought. It is remarkable that in the most northerly 

 parts of Europe and America the same effect, especially as to fibrous-rooted perennials, 

 is produced by cold ; and in Russia and New England, where there is scarcely any 

 spring, the agriculturist has only to plough once, and sow in the same way as in the 

 hot valleys of the south of Spain, and in South America, where vegetation is as rapid 

 from the accession of moisture, as it is in the cold plains of Russia from the influence of 

 the sun during the long days of a northern summer. In hot countries, putrescent 

 manures are not altogether neglected, but they are much less necessary than in cold 

 countries, and can be done without where there is abundance of water ; there, water, 



