In addition to this large use of wheat as a bread plant, France shows strong Mediterranean influence in the part which wine plays in the dietary of the people, in the variety of vegetables, especially kinds of pulse, which are grown; in the fact that fowls and pork form a large part of the animal food consumed, and in that flax has been grown in considerable amounts for long ages, so that linen is an important part of household wealth. The Midi is of course definitely Mediterranean in culture, but just as the vine extends far to the north and west so also do Mediterranean influences extend far beyond the region of Mediterranean climate and Mediterranean flora. But fertile as much of France is, it must not be regarded as consisting of nothing but fields of waving wheat. To complete and correct the picture we must add that, as in Russia, considerable amounts of buckwheat are grown for use as human food. Buckwheat, the "black wheat" of the French, perhaps introduced by the Arabs, is not a true cereal, but a relative of the knot-grass of British fields. It is very easily grown, even on poor land, and in France replaces wheat where the conditions are unfavourable, or where agriculture is backward. It is not without interest to note that while its use in France as human food is an indication of extreme poverty, in the United States buckwheat cakes take a place as a luxury. Oatcakes in lowland Scotland, "black bread" in well-to-do households in Germany, are other similar instances of the reappearance of a despised food-stuff as a luxury. Such foods become luxuries when they can be used to supplement, not to replace, white bread. Most of the buckwheat of France, however, is now grown as food for domesticated animals. Again, fruit trees are extensively grown in France as in the Mediterranean region, with a gradual increase in the forms which require more moisture and less heat as we travel northwards. The typically Mediterranean forms early disappear, while many kinds of plums, pears and apples increase in numbers and in value. As we travel northwards also, the various forms of berries, scarcely represented in the south, increase in importance. The strawberries of Brittany form a good example, but throughout Europe generally this change takes place, culminating in the enormous wealth of wild berries--cranberries, whortleberries, and so on, which is a characteristic feature of the Scandinavian uplands in late summer.