7O GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 
Russia and Germany. France stands first among the wheat- 
producing countries of Europe, as, although this country has not 
nearly so large an acreage under wheat as Russia, the average yield 
is 17 bushels per acre. The wheat crop of France is 300,000,000 
bushels ; of Russia, 250,000,000 ; of Hungary, Italy and Germany, 
each from 120,000,000 to 150,000,000 bushels ; Spain, 80,000,000, 
The wheat crop of Europe is close upon 1,400,000,000 bushels. 
In the British Isles, wheat does not ripen at a greater elevation 
than 1,000 feet, while barley and oats are precarious crops at an 
altitude of 1,500 feet. A large part of the British Isles (all Scot- 
land except the Lowlands, Ireland, Wales, and the West of England) 
is not so well adapted for the cultivation of wheat as of oats and 
barley, owing to excessive moisture brought by the prevailing 
Atlantic winds, and to the elevation of the surface. Oats and 
barley therefore predominate. In England, wheat, barley and oats 
are cultivated in nearly equal proportions, the acreage under each 
of these cereals being from 13 to 2 million acres; only 80,000 acres 
are devotedto rye. The acreage under oats in Scotland (1,000,000) 
is five times more than that under barley. Ireland has 1} million 
acres devoted to oats, while the proportion under barley is only one- 
eighth. In both Scotland and Ireland, the acreage under oats is 25 
times more than that under wheat ; rye everywhere asmall crop. In 
Wales the cultivation of oats ({ million acres) is rather more than 
twice as large as that of barley, and five times greater than that of 
wheat. The wheat crop of the United Kingdom is about 60,000,000 
bushels, the average yield per acre being about 30 bushels (highest 
in Scotland, 37 bushels), Oat-crop 180,000,000 bushels, average 
yield 40; barley 80,000,000 bushels, yield 34 bushels. A bushel 
of wheat = 60 lbs., of barley 50 lbs., of oats 39 lbs. 
In Asia, the distribution of the cereals falls into zones of elevation 
rather than zones of latitude, except in the north, because the 
greater part of this continent, lying within the temperate zone, 
presents as its main physical features deserts of sand impregnated 
with salt, or extensive and lofty mountain ranges, and is therefore 
unfit for cultivation. The northern limit of grains in Siberia is the 
6oth parallel ; rye and oats chiefly in the northern part, together 
with barley ; wheat in the fertile plains of the south-west, mostly in 
the upper basins of the Obi and Yenisei, to the foot of the Altai 
range. Crops ripen with great rapidity in the higher latitudes, 
where in summer the sun is above the horizon for twenty hours 
each day; east of the Yenisei there is hardly any cultivation. 
The great desert belt (a continuation of the Sahara) stretches 
almost uninterruptedly from the Red Sea to the Pacific, through 
Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, Russian Central Asia, and the great 
Gobi to Manchuria ; the eastern half of it is almost totally destitute 
of cultivation : on the Iranian plateau wheat and barley are grown 
in the elevated parts ; rice in the marshy lowlands, fertile valleys, 
and riverine tracts where irrigation can be practised, often in 
association with wheat, and sometimes with maize. The Persian 
wheat crop is about 20,000,000 bushels. In Asia Minor and Arabia 
