TYPES OF VEGETATION 21 



of vegetation into milk, butter, cheese, or meat. Cattle 

 need to be pastured on rich and succulent grasses to yield 

 good and abundant mUk. Dairy-farming is thus most 

 suocessfxil in the moister parts of oceanic regions {e.g., 

 Brittany, Denmark, Holland, West of England, Ireland). 

 Where cattle are reared for meat and hides only, and not 

 for milk, a relatively poor grass will suffice, and such are 

 the conditions on the great ranches of America. 



The large amount of food required by stock leads, on 

 the one hand, to the utilization of large areas of pasturage, 

 as in the case of nomadic pastoral tribes ; or, on the other 

 hand, to the necessity for a certain amount of artificial 

 feeding, at least during a portion of the year, when the 

 natural herbage fails. For this reason, fodder and root- 

 crops are raised in dairy-districts almost entirely as food 

 for cattle. 



Clitaiate and Vegetation in Europe. 



1. Tundras. — These are a type of treeless moorland 

 occupying the Arctic parts of Europe. In winter they 

 are icy. wastes, in summer, morasses. The growing 

 season is cold and very short. The vegetation is poor 

 and dwarfed, consisting chiefly of mosses and lichens. 

 Mosses such as Polytrichum occupy the wet peaty parts, 

 while lichens like Cladonia rangiferina, the reindeer moss, 

 floraish on the higher, drier ground. The tundras, 

 however, are not devoid of other vegetation, especially 

 towards their southern limits, where, among the carpets 

 of moss and lichen, occur lycopodiums, sedges, reeds, 

 grasses (Nardus stricta, Aha fiexuosa), dwarf shrubs 

 [Vaccinium, Calluna), and even a few stunted trees 

 (Arctic birches and wiUows), but these are rarely more 

 than a few inches high. A similar moss and lichen-flora 

 is found on high mountains just below the snow-line. 



2. Coniferous Forests. — These form a broad belt on the 

 glacial soils south of the Tundra. The winters are cold 

 and long and the summers short, but tall tree-growth is 

 made possible by the absence of violent wind in winter. 

 The forests are composed almost entirely of conifers with 

 very small evergreen leaves (pines, firs), a single species 

 of which often monopoUzes large areas. Two deciduous 

 trees, however, the larch and the birch, accompany these 

 evergreens to the limits of tree-growth and even extend 



