and at Yakoutch barley is sometimes seen to arrive at maturity.

In some districts of Lapland, situated to the westward, the inhabitants are, by dint of careful tillage, enabled to produce plentiful crops of rye. In some spots, nearer even than this to the pole, potatoes are made to supply the place of grain; but for the most part the inhabitants are constrained to subsist upon dried fish.

In Kamtchatka, which is considerably to the south of Siberia, extending from 62° to 51° of north latitude, but united with that province at its eastern extremity, no attempts to cultivate the cereal grasses have ever proved successful, the produce not having in any case been sufficient to repay the labour of the tillage. These failures may, however, be attributable more to the generally ungrateful nature of the soil than to the effects of an unkindly climate, since in some spots where the land is of better quality, other esculent vegetables are produced in tolerable perfection; cabbages, carrots, turnips, radishes, beet-root, and even cucumbers, are raised constantly and without difficulty. Dried fish and caviare form the principal food of the inhabitants of Kamtchatka and the islands of the Aleoutian Archipelago.

Barley and oats are the kinds of grain the culture of which extends farthest to the north in Europe. The meal which they yield, and which is seldom or never used by the inhabitants of South Britain for human food, forms, on the contrary, the principal sustenance of the inhabitants of Norway and Sweden, of a part of Siberia, and even of Scotland.

Rye follows next in order, being associated with oats and barley in the more northern division of the temperate zone. In the southern parts of Norway and Sweden, in Denmark, in districts bordering on The Baltic Sea, and in the north of Germany, rye

forms the principal object of cultivation; barley being raised in those countries, as with us, only for the purpose of brewing, and the use of oats being limited principally to the feeding of horses. In all these last-mentioned places, wheat is also grown; but its consumption is limited, and the principal part is made an object of external trade.

The winters of Norway are intensely cold, but their summers are, on the contrary, excessively warm, particularly in the vallies, upon which the rays of the sun are reverberated during the day from the mountains, while the atmosphere has no time for becoming cool during the few hours when the sun is below the horizon. In such situations barley is generally sown and reaped within the short space of sixty days; sometimes even six weeks are found to suffice for fulfilling the hopes of the husbandman. The Norwegian agriculturist is, however, occasionally visited by seasons, throughout which the sun appears to lose its genial power, and vegetation is stunted; blossoms, indeed, appear, but are unsucceeded by fruits, and the straw yields nothing but empty ears. This calamity is happily of rare occurrence; and, unless when checked by a premature frost, the harvests of Norway are for the most part abundant and excellent.

Agriculture is pursued systematically and even scientifically in Sweden, by which means the prevailing barrenness of the soil is partially remedied. The province of Gothland is made to produce barley, oats, rye, and wheat, as well as pease and beans. In these climates, the transition of the seasons is always abrupt. Vegetation, when it has once commenced, proceeds with a rapidity unknown in these more temperate regions; and the interval which elapses between committing the seed to the soil and gathering

the ripened harvest, is scarcely greater in Sweden than is experienced in Norway.

Somewhat farther to the south, rye in a great measure disappears, and wheat becomes the principal material used for human food. France, England, the southern part of Scotland, part of Germany and Hungary, and the lands of Western and Middle Asia, fall within this description. In most of these countries the vine is also successfully cultivated; and wine forming a substitute for beer, the raising of barley is consequently much neglected.

Still farther southward, wheat is found in abundance, but maize and rice are also produced, and enter largely among the constituents of human food. Portugal and Spain, that part of France which borders on the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, and Greece, are thus circumstanced.

Still farther to the east, in Persia and Northern India, Arabia, Nubia, Egypt, and Barbary, wheat is indeed found; but maize, rice, and millet form the principal materials for human sustenance. On the plains near the Caspian Sea, in the province of Georgia, rice, wheat, barley, and millet are raised abundantly, and with very little culture. In the more elevated parts of those districts rye is sometimes cultivated, but oats entirely disappear, the mules and horses being fed on barley.

The mode of culture followed at the present day in Egypt is exceedingly simple, and calls but for a small amount of labour. All that is required for raising barley and wheat, is, when the inundations of the Nile have subsided, to throw the seed upon the mud; if this should be thought too hard and stiff, the grain is lightly ploughed in, and no farther care or culture is then required until the ripening of the produce, which usually happens from the beginning to the end of April.

In Nubia, and particularly above the Great Cataract, the banks of the river are so high as seldom to admit of the overflowing of the waters, and the Nubian cultivators are consequently obliged to employ sakies, or water-wheels, for the purpose of irrigating the fields during the summer: this practice prevails as far as Sennaar. Each of these sakies is capable of irrigating as much land as is calculated to yield from twelve to fifteen hundred English bushels of grain, and employs the alternate labour of eight or ten cows. The water thus dispensed over the land is thrown up either from the Nile, or from pits dug to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet, in which an abundant supply is soon collected. The principal vegetable productions of Nubia are barley and dhourra (Sorghum, or Indian millet). The use of wheat is confined to the more wealthy inhabitants.

The grains which form the principal objects of cultivation in our division of the globe are rarely seen in China and Japan, where rice greatly predominates. The reason for this is not to be sought in the influence of climate, but rather in the peculiar manners and tastes of the people; since, throughout the isles of Japan, and in a very considerable part of the Chinese empire, every one of those grains might be successfully reared. The denseness of population in China furnishes a sufficient reason why the pursuit of agriculture should be so much encouraged as it is by the government. The annals of that singular people acquaint us, that one of their emperors who enjoyed the highest reputation for wisdom was taken from the plough to sit upon the throne. Another has been celebrated for having discovered the art of draining low lands, of collecting the water in canals, and of converting it from a noxious impediment to the useful purpose of irrigation. Their emperor, Ven-ti, who reigned 179 years before Christ, is said

to have incited his subjects to the more zealous cultivation of their lands, by ploughing with his own hands the land surrounding his palace, which example being followed by his ministers and courtiers, influ enced in turn those who moved in a less exalted sphere*.

Of the countries which lie between the tropics, those of Asia adopt principally the use of rice, while maize is made the common food of the Americans. There exists a natural reason for this distribution, Asia being undoubtedly the native region of rice, while maize is as certainly the production of America. In Africa, except as already particularized, and in the British settlements of that continent, the two grains are used indifferently and in nearly equal proportions.

Wheat is found in some situations within the tro, pics; but its high price, as compared with that of other grains, occasions its use to be confined to the

more wealthy classes. In many parts of British India, and particularly in the upper provinces, the quality of the wheat is represented as being excellent, although the grain is smaller than with us. Barley is likewise grown in some of the more northern districts, but the grain does not attain to the same size or plumpness as in Europe. The variety cultivated in India is that known by us under the name of Bigg; its cheapness causes it, however, to be extensively used by the native population, who eat it in the form of cakes.

The agriculture of the Hindu Ryots is of the very rudest description: their ploughs are scarcely deserving of the name, having no contrivance for turning over the soil; the instrument employed as a harrow is nothing more than the branch of a

* Du Halde, Nouvelle relation de la Chine, tome i. pp. 274-5,