420 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOTANY OF [ Graminee. 
high for rice. The straw of all is much valued as fodder for cattle, being cut up into 
small pieces, and called kurdee. 
Zea mays, Maize or Indian corn, a native of S. America, and so extensively culti- 
vated both in Peru and Mexico, has been introduced, not only into the United States 
of America, but also into Africa and Asia, and even into the southern parts of Europe; 
its cultivation has been attempted in England, chiefly by the influence of the late Mr. 
Cobbett. It is calculated that next to rice, it is the grain which supplies food to the 
greatest number of the human race, and that it is capable of cultivation when the sum- 
mer temperature equals or exceeds that common to latitude 45°, and even to 48°. This 
extensive cultivation is remarkable in a plant, originally a native of S. America, and 
may be ascribed partly to its probably having been a mountain plant of those latitudes, 
and also to its requiring a less degree of moisture than rice, as well as to some of its 
varieties coming to maturity in so short a space of time as forty days. It has been 
introduced into India, and is cultivated both in the plains and in the Himalayas, but 
“not so extensively as its productiveness and value as a grain would warrant; nor are 
the modes of cultivation adapted to insure the greatest degree of productiveness, either 
with respect to the quantity of grain or of straw. It is more extensively employed in 
India with the seeds roasted while still green, than as a grain to be converted into 
flour; but if cultivated for this purpose, according to the most approved course of agri-— 
culture, it would probably be found more productive than some of the grains now 
cultivated in India. These consist of Paspalum scrobiculatum (koda), and its varieties, 
which are much cultivated, and form a great portion of the diet of many of the natives; 
as also P. miliare, which Dr. Roxburgh describes as being extensively cultivated, and 
as forming the diet of the natives in the Peninsula. P. frwmentaceum, which is their 
sanwuk, and its varieties, called mundoo-sanwuk and saonkee, yielding between fifty 
and sixty fold, and Pennisetum (Setaria) italica, commonly called Italian millet, yielding 
the former proportion. It is the kungne of the natives of India, Arab. sumak. Peni- 
cillaria spicata, Hindee bajra, Arab. jawurus, which forms much of the diet of the 
poorer natives. Eleusine corocana (mundooa), with E. stricta of Roxburgh, appear, 
however, to be the most prolific of the cultivated grasses, as the ordinary product is 
120 fold; and he describes one variety as yielding even 500 fold in the Rajamundry 
Circars. One plant of E. stricta he particularly describes as having borne not less than 
81,000 seeds. Besides these cultivated species, the grains of others growing in a wild 
state are collected, and form articles of diet with the poorer classes of the natives of 
India, as of Panicum floridum (burtee), P. Helopus (kooree), P. (Echinochloa) hispidulum 
(dhand). 
To the cultivated kinds some others might be easily added, if it were desirable, as 
Setaria germanica, Digitaria sanguinalis, Festuca aquatica, Glyceria fluitans, &c. suited 
either to the plains or mountains of India. 
The cultivation of Pasture-grasses having only so recently formed a part of English 
* agriculture, 
