There are not trees enough to warrant wooden houses or even many wooden sheds. So most of the buildings are of brick or sometimes stone, which gives a substantial, permanent appearance. And appear ances conform with facts, for outside the war-stricken areas probably half the people live in houses built a hundred or more years ago. According to American ideas many other features are somewhat old fashioned. For example the small fields are cultivated by hand more than by machinery. Nevertheless, for intensive, profitable cultiva tion, for purposeful industry, and for real comfort and pleasure few parts of the world exceed this garden spot at the center of European agriculture.
How Agriculture Changes Outward from the Center. —Northwestward across the Channel in southern England the country is almost as thoroughly cultivated as in northern France, although the variety of crops decreases. There are less rye and oats, while barley is more plentiful. Flax, tobacco, the sugar beet, and goats almost disappear, but roots for animal forage become more noteworthy. In other words, while the farming is still of the same intensive type, it becomes less varied. Yet in yield per acre England often surpasses France, though not Belgium.
In Ireland, where the winters are warmer, the summers cooler, and all parts of the year damper than in France, the type of agriculture changes. Oats are the only really large cereal crop, and potatoes the one great crop in the vegetable group. Certain places, indeed, oh tivate considerable wheat, rye, barley, and flax, but these are of minor importance compared with either animals or the hay and forage which they consume. Ireland has about 150 cattle per square mile compared with 83 in Iowa in 1920, 56 in Wisconsin, and 46 in NewYork. In fact, including its many horses, sheep, goats, and swine, and the rela numerous donkeys, Ireland has more animals in proportion to her area than any other country in the world. Unfortunately the country suffers from one-crop agriculture. Many Irish farmers rely largely on potatoes, oats, and cattle. The country is so moist, swampy, and cloudy, that highly diversified fanning is difficult, and economic distress is common.
Northward as well as northwestward from France the importance of animals increases and the number of crops declines. In the Nether lands and Denmark this does little harm, for the cultivation is so inten-1 sive and cooperation so well developed that there is great prosperity.) In southern Norway, however, where the cool summers limit the chief crops to oats, barley, potatoes, and hay, the dangers of one-crop agri culture are always present, in spite of relatively large numbers ofl cattle and sheep. But the Norwegians, unlike the Irish, largely sup
plement their agriculture by fishing, and by acting as carriers of com merce for other nations. Norway has more shipping tonnage per person than any other country in the world. North of the southern fringe of the country crops cease to be profitable, and the Norwegians rely almost wholly on seafaring occupations or on cattle which they drive back and forth from seacoast to mountains according to the: season. Across the Scandinavian peninsula to the east where the mountains shut out. part of the oceanic winds and moisture, great. forests flourish in the cold but relatively dry parts of Sweden bordering, the Gulf of Bothnia. There the people not only cut wood but make it into furniture and other useful forms. Almost everywhere in Scandi navia the houses are made of wood, in strong contrast to the brick and. stone of England and central Europe. In the far north the cold, stormy climate makes even lumbering and cattle raising impossible: There the Lapps rely on reindeer, or on fish caught close to the shore.
Returning to northern France and proceeding nearly northeastward, toward Berlin and Moscow we at first find little change in agriculture and other forms of primary production. In central Germany most of the crops are like those of northern France except that rye, potatoes, root crops, barley, and swine are of greater importance, while fruit and vegetables decline, as befits the colder winters. Farther east in Poland, a harmful tendency toward one-crop agriculture begins. Around Moscow this is so strong that many a farmer plants only rye and oats with perhaps a small field of flax or potatoes. Animals are relatively much less numerous and varied than farther west, and the fertility of the fields is not well kept up. This tendency toward limited crops is due partly to the long, cold winters and short growing season, but has been much intensified by the communistic system of land holding. For many generations the land has belonged to the villages and not to individuals. The farmer was never sure how long he would hold his land, and so took little pains to improve it. Under the Bolshe vist regime this tendency was intensified, for the farmers not only had no ownership in the land, but were not even supposed to own the crops. The one-crop type of agriculture as practiced on the rye farms of middle Russia leads to hard times, poverty, ignorance, and apathy not only because of poor crops, but because the diet is one-sided, lacking the vitamines and other necessary elements provided by fruit and vegetables.