northern regions.  In the Alps it is widespread, and not confined to the culture of the vine.  The traveler passing along the upper Rhone through the sunny Canton of Valais follows these terraced fields almost as far as Fiesch (altitude 3458 feet), beyond which agriculture proper becomes more and more restricted on account of the elevation, and passes rapidly into the mere hay-making of a pastoral community.  Between Leak and Sierre, not only the mountain sides, but also the steep gravel hills constituting the old terminal moraine deposited by the receding Rhone glacier across the valley floor, are terraced to their very tops.

Terrace cultivation prevails in the mountains of Italy; it is utilized not only for the vine, but for olives, maize, oats, hemp, rye and flax.  On the gentler declivities of the Apennines, the terraced walls are wider apart and lower than on the steep slopes of the Ligurian Apennines and along the Riviera of the Maritime Alps, where the mountains rise abruptly from the margin of the sea.[1268] Careful and laborious terrace cultivation has produced in Italy a class of superior gardeners.  The Genoese are famous for their skill in this sort of culture.  The men from the Apennine plateau of the Abruzzi readily find positions in the lowlands as expert gardeners.[1269]

[Sidenote:  Terrace culture of the Saracens.]

The Saracens of Spain in the tenth century converted every mountain slope into a succession of green terraces.  They built walls of heavy masonry, and brought water, loam, and fertilizing materials from great distances.  The slopes of Granada back of Malaga and Almeria were covered with vineyards.  Every foot of land susceptible of cultivation was turned to account, every drop of water from the ill-timed winter rains was conserved for the growing season.  The application of intelligence and labor to tillage enabled the Hispano-Arab provinces to support a dense population.[1270] These Saracen cultivators had come from the severest training school in all Eurasia.  Where the arid tableland of Arabia is buttressed on the southwestern front by high coast ranges (6000 to 10,500 feet or 2000 to 3200 meters) is Yemen, rich in its soil of disintegrated trap rock, adequately watered by the dash of the southwest monsoons against its towering ridges; but practically the whole country is atilt.  Consequently the mountains have been terraced from the base often up to 6000 feet.  The country presents the aspect of vast agricultural amphitheaters, in which the narrow paths of ancient paving zigzag up and up through successive zones of production.  Here is a wide range of fruits—­oranges, lemons, figs, dates, bananas and coffee; then apricots, apples, plums, grapes, quinces, peaches, together with grains of various zonal distribution, such as millet, maize, wheat and barley.  The terrace walls are from five to eight feet high, but toward the top of the mountains they often increase to fifteen feet.  Though laid without