We have thus, in successive chapters, shown that in Europe three chief zones of vegetation exist, the Mediterranean scrub land, the temperate forest zone, the steppe or pasture land, and that as each of these is determined by climate, each, again, has special types of cultivated plants and domesticated animals, involving a special social polity in each case. Now it is interesting to note, what cannot be a pure coincidence, that in Europe three races of men exist, which show a certain rough correspondence to the three zones of vegetation.
The Mediterranean type of vegetation and climate is associated with a particular race, to which the name of Mediterranean has been given. The race is by no means confined to the Mediterranean region—we find representatives of it, e. g. in western Ireland,—nor does it occupy the whole of that region, for in many places it is pressed hard by other races, but it reaches its fullest development within the Mediterranean basin. Curiously enough, also, its presence in western Ireland is associated with the presence of certain representatives of the Mediterranean flora, notably the arbutus or strawberry tree and St. Dabeoc’s heath.
The characteristic inhabitants of the temperate forest region of Europe are the members of the race called Teutonic or Nordic, whose particular type of civilisation is deeply stamped by the lessons they learnt in their early struggle with the forest.
Finally, the steppe and pasture lands, whether in parts of Russia, in the Hungarian plain, or in the Alps and in the uplands of Brittany and Central Europe, etc., tend to be occupied by a third race, which seems to have originated in the steppes of Asia, and to which the somewhat inappropriate name of Alpine has been given, though it occurs in lowlands to the east as well as in uplands to the west. This race seems to be accompanied throughout Europe by plants and animals of Asiatic origin.
The full meaning of this association between racial peculiarities and types of vegetation cannot perhaps be formulated meantime, but it is interesting to note that there are some curiously close connections between human life and the distribution of vegetation. For instance, all travellers in Switzerland must have been struck by the curious fact that in following up the Rhone valley from the lake of Geneva to the Rhone glacier the French language is found to extend up to the town of Sion, and beyond, without any obvious cause, German prevails. It has been pointed out recently that the eastward extension of the French language here marks also the eastward extension of the sweet chestnut—a curious coincidence.
Again, the same writer points out that the battle-ground between the French and German peoples round the Rhine is the region where the growth of the sweet chestnut as a planted tree reaches its eastward limit. Such facts must not, of course, be over-emphasised. Both must indicate a climatic change, but it can hardly be supposed that this change of climate is sufficient to affect man directly. It seems at least justifiable to point out that every human group which reaches any degree of civilisation and stability must depend for its permanence in the early stages on some special skill in the growing of certain cultivated plants, and the rearing of certain domesticated animals. We have much reason to believe that this skill is often difficult to acquire by other groups. The great difficulties which have been experienced in introducing e. g. Smyrna figs and dates into the United States; the fact that Europeans seem to find it impossible to manage camels without native help, and that they have been hitherto unable, despite most elaborate and costly experiments, to tame the African elephant, seem to be minor illustrations of this fact. Given, then, an evolving group spreading over the surface of the globe, and taking with it its characteristic plants and animals, it is probable enough that such a change of climate, even a minor change, as may be sufficient to render it impossible to cultivate these plants, or to rear these animals, may give a definite and more or less permanent check to the spread of the race. There is at least some evidence to this effect, and it gives an additional interest to the study of plant geography.
We have limited ourselves in this chapter practically to a consideration of the European area, because the existing cultivated plants and domesticated animals of North America are almost all derived from Europe, with the exceptions already indicated, and a few others not of great importance, and their distribution in America is determined by the same conditions as in Europe.