The goats chiefly feed upon the young shoots of shrubs, and frequent the denser thickets, while the sheep browse upon the grasses and herbs to be found in the more open forms of maquis. The climate permits the animals to remain in the open during the whole year, and this prevents the collection of the manure for the arable lands. Further, the summer drought makes it difficult for even these hardy animals to obtain food, and necessitates in many regions a curious form of nomadism, to which the name of transhumance is given. Transhumance, still well developed in Spain, is the periodic and alternating displacement of flocks and herds between two regions of different climate.
As we have had frequent reason to remark, the rainlessness of the Mediterranean summer is locally modified by many causes, notably by elevation. Mountains may receive frequent showers, while the plains are parched and brown, and therefore there may be pasture on the mountains while there is none in the plains. On lofty mountains also the winter snow lingers long enough to promote the growth of summer pasture. While there are considerable herds of sheep and goats, then, it may be necessary for the flocks and their keepers to travel to the mountains in summer and back to the plains in winter. In Spain these periodic migrations, now largely made by means of the railway, formerly took place by well-defined routes, along which the immense army of sheep, accompanied by a smaller army of attendants, passed twice a year, causing enormous destruction to the cultivated lands through which they passed. Everywhere the conflict between shepherd and husbandman is more or less acute, but it seems to have been especially acute in Spain, which is in some respects a link between Africa and Europe. Its constant liability to Arab invasion made agriculture especially difficult, while frequent wars favoured the pastoral industry; for flocks may be removed to a place of safety on an alarm, but agriculture must have some security before it can develop. In the semi-desert regions of North Africa some form of pastoral nomadism, with the social polity which comes from pastoral nomadism, was the natural result of the physical and climatic conditions, and Spain, like the lands of the eastern part of Europe, has been constantly liable to have its nascent agriculture destroyed by incursions of such pastoral nomads. In both cases the slow victory of the agriculturists, marked by many temporary reverses, affords an extraordinarily interesting chapter in human history. A stable civilisation must always be based upon agriculture, but every disturbance of an old and stable civilisation has temporarily encouraged the pastoral as contrasted with the agricultural industries.
In regard to the other animals of the Mediterranean, mention need only be made of the domesticated birds. The fowl has long been known; it is believed to have been introduced from the East eight centuries B.C. Both the eggs and the flesh are of great importance as a source of food. In spite of Roman history, geese are relatively unimportant, as are also ducks, but the turkey, late introduction from America, is well suited to the climate and has become important. Pigeons are everywhere abundant, sometimes so much so that their manure is extensively used as a fertiliser. We have already mentioned silkworms, and students of classical history know that bees have long been kept.
If we sum up what has been said about Mediterranean cultivated plants, we may note that these have been derived partly from native plants, partly from plants native to the warm forest country of eastern Asia, and partly from American plants. Regarding for a moment the Eurasiatic continent as a whole, we may say that the old civilisations, both to the east and to the west, arose in the forest regions—in the monsoon forests to the east, in the drought-resisting forest or scrub of the west. The temperate forest of Asia has produced no great civilisation, and the civilisation of the temperate forest zone of Europe has owed much to the earlier civilisation of the Mediterranean, with which it has always had free communication.
This free communication has taken place chiefly by means of the Mediterranean seaboard of France, especially by means of the great Rhone valley, which forms a natural highway to the north. France, with both an Atlantic and a Mediterranean seaboard, has been the natural intermediary between the Mediterranean scrub land, with its characteristic civilisation, and the temperate forest region, with its colder climate, and its greater rainfall, which produce a corresponding difference in the cultivated plants.
We have seen that wheat is the great bread plant of the Mediterranean, and it is interesting to note that in this respect France is almost purely Mediterranean. It is, above all, the country of white bread, which plays a very important part in the dietary of the people. In ordinary years the country produces nearly as much wheat as it consumes.
In addition to this large use of wheat as a bread plant, France shows strong Mediterranean influence in the part which wine plays in the dietary of the people, in the variety of vegetables, especially kinds of pulse, which are grown; in the fact that fowls and pork form a large part of the animal food consumed, and in that flax has been grown in considerable amounts for long ages, so that linen is an important part of household wealth. The Midi is of course definitely Mediterranean in culture, but just as the vine extends far to the north and west so also do Mediterranean influences extend far beyond the region of Mediterranean climate and Mediterranean flora.
But fertile as much of France is, it must not be regarded as consisting of nothing but fields of waving wheat. To complete and correct the picture we must add that, as in Russia, considerable amounts of buckwheat are grown for use as human food. Buckwheat, the “black wheat” of the French, perhaps introduced by the Arabs, is not a true cereal, but a relative of the knot-grass of British fields. It is very easily grown, even on poor land, and in France replaces wheat where the conditions are unfavourable, or where agriculture is backward. It is not without interest to note that while its use in France as human food is an indication of extreme poverty, in the United States buckwheat cakes take a place as a luxury. Oatcakes in lowland Scotland, “black bread” in well-to-do households in Germany, are other similar instances of the reappearance of a despised food-stuff as a luxury. Such foods become luxuries when they can be used to supplement, not to replace, white bread. Most of the buckwheat of France, however, is now grown as food for domesticated animals.
Again, fruit trees are extensively grown in France as in the Mediterranean region, with a gradual increase in the forms which require more moisture and less heat as we travel northwards. The typically Mediterranean forms early disappear, while many kinds of plums, pears and apples increase in numbers and in value. As we travel northwards also, the various forms of berries, scarcely represented in the south, increase in importance. The strawberries of Brittany form a good example, but throughout Europe generally this change takes place, culminating in the enormous wealth of wild berries—cranberries, whortleberries, and so on, which is a characteristic feature of the Scandinavian uplands in late summer.