Note 1314 — Chapter XVI · —Influences Of A Mountain Environment

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