Influences of Geographic Environment - Ellen Churchill Semple (libby ebook reader .TXT) 📗
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The high pastures are particularly nourishing. Cows feeding here in the Alps give better milk than the "home" or valley cows, though a smaller quantity. Sheep and goats do equally well, but swine are profitable only as a by-product, to utilize the refuse of the cheese and butter industry. The area of these pastures far exceeds that of arable land in mountain regions. In Switzerland they comprise about 27 per cent. of the total productive area; hay meadows 24 per cent., but fields and gardens only 20 per cent.1301 In the Austrian province of Salzburg, pastures make up 13.3 per cent., hay meadows 34.5 per cent., and tilled fields only 11.7 per cent. of the total productive area. In the Tyrol the figures are much the same.1302 Since Norway has over 67 per cent. of its total area in bare mountains, snow fields, bogs and lakes, it is not surprising to find only 7.6 per cent. in pastures, 2.2 per cent. in meadows, and 0.7 per cent. in grain fields; but here the pastures are ten times the arable area.1303 The season of the summer feeding on the grass lands is short. In the so-called High Alps it frequently lasts only six or seven weeks, in the Grisons at most thirteen weeks1304 and in Norway from two to three months.1305
High mountain regions, practically restricted to this Graswirthschaft, soon reach their maximum of prosperity and population. The amount of hay secured for the winter feeding limits the number of cattle, and the number of the cattle, through their manure, fixes the valley hay supply. Alpine pastures cannot be enlarged, and they may be reduced by accidents of nature, such as landslides, devastating torrents, or advance of ice fields or glaciers. They cannot be improved by capital and labor, and they may deteriorate chemically by exhaustion. The constant export of butter and cheese from Alpine pastures in recent times, without substitution by any fertilizer beyond the local manure, has caused the diminution of phosphoric acid in the soil and hence impoverishment. Canton Glarus has shown a steady decline since 1630 in the number of cows which its mountain pastures can support.1306 Many other Alpine districts show the same deterioration.
The remoteness of these highland pastures from the permanent villages necessitates Sennenwirthschaft, or the maintenance of out-farms and shepherds on the mountains during the grazing season. This involves a semi-nomadic existence for such inhabitants as serve as herdmen. In June, as soon as the high pastures begin to grow green, cattle, sheep and goats ascend step by step in the wake of summer, as she climbs the slope, and they return in autumn to the valleys. There they feed on the stubble of hay and grain fields, till the increasing cold confines them to their low stables. The hut of the Senner or Saeter, as the herdsman is variously called in Switzerland and Norway, consists of a living room and a smaller apartment for making butter and cheese, while against the steep slope is a rude stone shelter for the cattle and goats. The predominance of summer pastures has made cattle-raising a conspicuous part of agriculture in the Alps and in Norway. In many parts of Switzerland, cattle are called "wares" and the word cheese is used as a synonym for food, as we use bread. A Swiss peasant who has a reputation for cheese making is popular with the girls.1307 Here even Cupid turns dairy expert.
Since it is scarcely practicable to divide these highland pastures, they have generally remained communal property, whether in Norway,1308 Switzerland, the Bavarian Alps, the British Himalayan districts,1309 Nepal and Bhutan,1310 or Kashmir.1311 In Europe their use is generally regulated. As a rule, a Swiss villager may keep on the Allmende during the summer as many head of cattle as he is able to stall-feed during the winter. Any in excess of this number must be paid for at a fixed rate to the village or commune treasury.1312 Hay-sheds and herdsmen's huts mark these districts of temporary occupation near the altitude limits of human life throughout Europe. In Asia, likewise, are to be found small villages, inhabited only in summer by herdsmen tending their flocks. Such is the hamlet of Minemerg, located at an altitude of about 8000 feet at the southern entrance to the Borzil Pass over the Western Himalayas, and Sonamerg (altitude 8650 feet or 2640 meters) just below the Zogi La Pass, both of them surrounded by rich meadows on the northern rim of the Vale of Kashmir.1313
The utilization of mountain pastures for stock raising is almost universal. In the arid highlands of Central Asia, it is the essential supplement to the pastoral nomadism of the steppes and deserts, and to the limited sedentary agriculture found along the irrigated piedmont slopes. Here and elsewhere the animal raised varies widely-the llama and vicuna in Peru, which thrive best at 10,000 to 13,000 feet elevation, and multiply rapidly on the ichu or coarse grass which clothes the slopes of the higher Andes up to snow line; sheep, goats, yaks and herds of dzo, a useful hybrid between yak and cow, in the highland districts of Sze Chuan. Here the Mantze mountaineers lock their houses and leave their villages deserted, while they camp with their herds on the high pastures at 10,000 feet or more.1314 Only economical, ingenious Japan has failed to develop stock raising, though mountains comprise two-thirds of its area. The explanation has often been sought in Buddhism, which inhibits the use of animal food; but this religious rule probably found ready acceptance in Japan, just because the paucity of animal food made its observance easy, for the fish industry of the Empire never suffered from the inhibition. The reason is probably to be sought elsewhere. The native grass of Japan, which relentlessly crowds out all imported grazing crops, is a bamboo grass with sharp, hard, serrated edges, and is said to cut the entrails of horses and sheep.1315
While the high pastures are ample for the summer feeding, the chief problem of mountain stock-farmers is to secure feed for the winter support of their animals. This taxes their industry and ingenuity to the utmost. While the herdsmen are away tending their charges on the heights, the rest of the population are kept busy at home, getting fodder for the six or seven months of stall-feeding. This includes the cultivation of hardy crops like oats, rye and barley, which will mature at a great altitude, hay-making and collecting twigs and even leaves for the less fastidious goats. In Switzerland as in Norway the art of mowing has reached its highest pitch. Grass only three inches high is cut thrice yearly. The Norwegian peasant gathers a small hay harvest from the roofs of his house and barns, and from the edges of the highways. In Switzerland not a spear of grass escapes. In places inaccessible to cattle and goats, the peasant gathers hay by the handful with crampons on his feet, generally from the ledges of cliffs. He stacks it in one spot, and brings it down to the valley by sledge in winter. He is the Wildheuer or wild hay gatherer. His life is so dangerous, that the law permits only one Wildheuer to a family.1316 In high Alpine cantons this office is the privilege of the poor.1317 The traveler in Norway frequently sees huge bundles of hay sliding down to the valley on wires stretched from some high point on the precipitous fiord wall. This represents the harvest from isolated spots or from the field of the summer shepherd. In the vicinity of every saeter hut, a plot of ground is fenced in, enriched with the manure gathered during the summer, and utilized to grow fine nourishing grass, which is mown and transported down to the valley farm.1318 Here economy of vegetative resources reaches its climax.
In mountain regions of heavy rainfall, thick dew and numerous cloudy days, it becomes a problem to get the hay dried and stored before a drenching shower comes. In many parts of Switzerland, therefore, the peasant on a clear morning cuts a limited amount of grass. This, with the help of his wife and children, he diligently turns and tosses at short intervals all day long, thus subjecting it to a rapid curing process by the action of the wind and the sun, whose rays are doubly effective in the rarefied air of the heights. In the evening the hay is made up into bundles and carried on his back to the barn. In other parts of Switzerland the green hay is hung on horizontal poles arranged against the sunny side of the chalet and under its projecting roof, thus exposed to the heat and protected from the rain till cured. In Norway the same purpose is achieved by setting up in the fields racks supporting long horizontal bars, over which the newly cut grass is hung. There it is exposed to the gentle fanning of the wind and penetrated by the warmth of the sun, in the short intervals when the sky is not overcast; and during a shower it sheds the water immediately, so that a minimum of harm is done. In the mountains of Germany, the hay is stacked on cone-shaped racks made of poles, with lateral projections which support the grass; thus the air can circulate freely inside the hollow cone, which is lifted well above the ground. Elsewhere sharpened stakes provided with cross bars are simply driven into the ground, and on these the hay is draped till cured.
Mountain hay-making leaves nothing to chance; too much depends upon the crop. In fact, at high altitudes it becomes the only crop. Cereal culture drops off with every increase of elevation. Norway has few fields above 1600 feet;1319 even barley fails to ripen above 2600 feet. In the mountains of Würtenberg we find pure Graswirthschaft at 3000 feet elevation, with only a small garden patch near the dwelling.1320 It is interesting to take a tramp up one of the longitudinal or lateral valleys of the Alps, and observe the economic basis of life gradually change from agriculture to hay-making, till in some high-laid Alpine cirque, like Bad Leuk or Barmaz at the head of the Val d'Ilez, one sees only meadows and an occasional potato patch, which impresses the lowlander as a last despairing effort in the struggle for existence.
Where climate and soil do so little for the support of life, man must do much. Work must in some way be made to compensate for an ungenerous Nature. The closely housed existence necessitated by the long severe winters of high altitudes stimulates industries in the home. The winter feeding of the stock involves little labor, so the abundant leisure would otherwise be wasted. Hence it is no accident that we find almost everywhere
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