Graminee.] THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 419 
var., velutina, kunnee-gehoon; many other varieties are probably known to the Zumeen- 
dars, but these are very distinct from each other, and may be clearly described. Wheat 
having been one of the earliest cultivated grains, is most probably of Asiatic origin, «as 
Asia was no doubt the earliest civilized, as well as the first peopled country. It is 
known to the Arabs under the name of hinteh; to the Persians as gundoom; Hindee, 
gehoon and kunuk. The species of barley cultivated in the plains of India, and known 
by the Hindee and Persian name juo, Arabic shaeer, is Hordeum hevastichon. As both 
wheat and barley are cultivated in the plains of India in the winter months, where 
none of the species of these genera are indigenous, it is probable that both have been 
introduced into India from the north, that is, from the Persian, or perhaps from 
the Tartarian region, where these, and other species of barley, are most successfully 
and abundantly cultivated. Panicum miliaceum, or common millet, is the only small 
grain cultivated at this season of the year. It is called cheena, by the natives of India ; 
Arab. dukhun ; Pers. urzun, and is, like the preceding, common to the cultivation of 
Europe, and of India. Oats, Avena sativa, are also now cultivated in the same season 
with wheat, and barley, by some European gentlemen, by whom the grain was intro- 
duced on account of their horses. Avena sterilis is found, as well as A. fatua, in fields 
of wheat and barley in the plains of North-western India, flowering in March. 
Rice is of course the grain most extensively cultivated in India, not only in the south- 
ern parts, but also in the northern provinces, as well as in the Himalayas in the rainy 
season. Numerous varieties are known to, and named by, the Zumeendars or farmers 
of India, and some of these yield the finest rice, as that cultivated in Pilibeet, though 
only the inferior kinds are imported into this country; whence it has been inferred that 
all Indian rice is inferior to the American, notwithstanding that it was first introduced 
into the latter country from India. It is known to the natives of India by the name 
chanwul, while the plant is called dhan; the Persian name of rice is dirunj, and the Arabic 
aruz, whence probably oryza, and the English rice, The different kinds of Sorghum, com- 
monly called joar or jooar, and in some works Great, or Indian Millet, constitute an 
important branch*of Indian culture; this is known to the Persians by the name. of 
jawurs-hindee; to the Arabs by the name zurut, and also to various tribes by that of 
durra. The species commonly grown are, Sorghum vulgare and S. bicolor (kala-jooar), 
referred by Dr. Roxburgh to Andropogon, and which he describes as being cultivated in 
a rather elevated, good soil; (seed-time October, and harvest-time January), and the 
produce as being often upwards of an hundred fold. Dr. Roxburgh observes, ‘‘ It is 
probable that through the whole of Southern Asia, as many of the inhabitants live on 
the various kinds of dry, or small grain, as upon rice, and they are reckoned fully as 
wholesome as that is.” S. cernuum is a distinct species; a variety of which he 
describes as being cultivated by the inhabitants of the Munnipore district, and as 
forming the staff of life of those mountaineers, because one of the few articles of their 
agriculture. §. saccharatum is another species described by him as much cultivated 
over various «parts of India, during the rainy and cold seasons, upon land which is too 
3u2 high 
