(单词翻译:单击)
Such are the plants which form the characteristic vegetable product of temperate regions. Wheat, which will not thrive in hot climates, flourishes all over the Temperate Zone, at various ranges of elevation. Maize spreads over an immense geographical area in North America, as well as in Southern Europe. Barley is cultivated in those parts of Europe and Asia where the soil and climate are not adapted for wheat; while oats and rye extend far into the bleak North, and disappear only when we reach those desolate Arctic regions where man cannot exist in his social capacity. By such striking adaptations of different varieties of grain to gradations of climate and varieties of soil, does Providence furnish the food indispensable for the sustenance of the human race.
这些是温带地区特有的蔬菜产品。小麦无法在炎热的气候条件下生长，但在温带不同海拔的地方却长势旺盛，尤其在北美及欧洲南部，小麦占据了大量的面积。大麦被种植在欧洲和亚洲某些土壤和气候不适宜种植小麦的地区。而燕麦和黑麦则一路延伸到荒凉的北方，直至那片人类无法依靠自己的社会能力生存下去的北极地区才停止生长。所以，上帝把不同的谷物对不同的气候和土壤的适应能力进行差异化，以此为人类提供其赖以生存的不可缺少的食物。
Again: what are the trees that are most useful to man in a high state of civilization? Unquestionably those yielding the largest supply of common timber. Now the chief fancy wood trees—those which form part of man's luxuries—belong to the Tropics; but the pines and hard-wood trees—those which minister to man's necessities—belong distinctively to the Temperate Zone. The inhabitant of that zone must send to Honduras for mahogany, to Brazil for rosewood, to make his finer furniture; but the pine, the ash, the oak, the elm, the beech—the timber used in building his houses and workshops, the wood used in fashioning his tools and carts and carriages, and in making his most complicated machinery—these he finds abundantly in his own woods. They are reared in the same climate, they breathe the same air as himself.
那么，在高度文明的社会下，对人类最有用的树木是哪些呢？毫无疑问，正是这些树木为人类提供了最大的木材供给。当今最有价值的木材来自热带地区，在人类的奢侈品行列。松树和硬木树则来自温带地区，是人类的必需品。那里的居民们为了制作家具，他们不得不派人到洪都拉斯买红木、到巴西去买紫檀木。但是那些用来建造房屋和车间的木材，比如松树、白蜡树、橡树、榆树、山毛榉，以及那些用来制作工具、马车和极其复杂的机器的木材，却是在当地随处可见的。它们身处同样的气候条件、呼吸着同样的空气。
What is true of the vegetable world above the soil, is true also of the mineral world beneath it. All the metals most useful to man, both for domestic and for industrial purposes—iron, tin, copper, lead—are found in abundance within the temperate regions. Coal, too, without which the ores could not be profitably smelted or supplied in sufficient quantities, and which is the main-spring of all manufacturing industry, is most plentiful in the Temperate Zone.
土壤上面的植物世界是真实的，下面的矿物世界也是真实的。所有那些对人类有用的金属物质，铁、锡、铜、铅，不管是家用还是工业用途，都大量存在于温带地区。煤也是如此，煤是所有制造业中的主要原料，没有煤矿石就无法进行有效的熔炼或者无法供给足够的数量，而温带地区的煤储量也是最为丰富的。
