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.

[Sidenote:  Mountain herdsman and shepherds.]

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.

[Sidenote:  Communal ownership of mountain pastures.]

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]