Note 1421 — Chapter XVII · —The Influence Of Climate

In equatorial regions, which have an abundant rainfall throughout the year, agriculture is directed toward fruits and roots; only in certain districts can it include cereals, and then only rice and maize. The temperate grains demand some dry summer weeks for their maturity. Excessive moisture in Ireland has practically excluded wheat-growing, which in England and Scotland also is restricted chiefly to the drier eastern counties.1421 It thrives, on the other hand, in Manitoba and the Red River region even with a short season of scant rainfall, because this comes in the spring when moisture is most needed.1422 Most important to man, therefore, is the question how and when the rainfall is distributed, and with what regularity it comes. Monsoon and trade-wind districts labor under the disadvantage of a wet and dry season, and a variability which brings tragic results, since it easily reduces a barely adequate rainfall to disastrous drought. These are the lands where wind and weather lord it over man. If the rains hold off too long, or stop too soon, or withhold even a small portion of their accustomed gift, famine stalks abroad.