299 



inhabitants of the northern parts of Norway and Sweden, of a part of Siberia 

 and Scotland, their chief vegetable nourishment. 



" Rye is the next which becomes associated with these. This is the prevail- 

 ing grain in a great part of the northern temperate zone, namely, in the south 

 of Sweden and Norway, Denmark, and in all the lands bordering on the Baltic ; 

 the north of Germany, and part of Siberia. In the latter, another very nutri- 

 tious grain, buck-wheat, is very frequently cultivated. In the zone where tye 

 prevails, wheat is also generally to be found ; barley being here chiefly culti- 

 vated for the manufacture of beer, and oats supplying food for the horses. 



" To these there follows a zone in Europe and western Asia, where rye dis- 

 appears, and wheat almost exclusively furnishes bread. The middle, or the 

 south of France, England, part of Scotland, a part of Germany, Hungary, 

 the Crimea and Caucasus, as also the lands of middle Asia, where agriculture 

 is followed, belong to this zone. Here the vine is also found ; wine supplants 

 the use of beer ; and barley is consequently less raised. 



" Next comes a district where wheat still abounds, but no longer exclusively 

 furnishes bread, rice and maize becoming, frequent. To this zone belong Por- 

 tugal, Spain, part of France on the Mediterranean, Italy, and Greece ; further, 

 the countries of the East, Persia, northern India, Arabia, Egypt, Nubia, Bar- 

 bary, and the Canary Islands ; in these latter countries, however, the culture 

 of maize or rice, towards the south, is always more considerable, and in some 

 of them several kinds of Sorghum (Doura) and Poa Abyssinica come to be 

 added. In both these regions of wheat, rye only occurs at a considerable ele- 

 vation ; oats, however, more seldom, and at last entirely disappear ; barley af- 

 fording food for horses and mules. 



" In the eastern parts of the temperate zone of the Old Continent, in China 

 and Japan, our northern kinds of grain are very unfrequent, and lice is found to 

 predominate. The cause of this difference between the east and the west of 

 the Old Continent appears to be in the manners and peculiarities of the people. 

 In North America, wheat and rye grow as in Europe, but more sparingly. 

 Maize is more reared in the Western than in the Old Continent, and rice pre- 

 dominates in the southern provinces of the United States. 



11 In the torrid zone, maize predominates in America, rice in Asia, and both 

 these grains in nearly equal quantity in Africa. The case of this distribution is, 

 without doubt, historical ; for Asia is the native country of rice, and America of 

 maize. In some situations, especially in the neighbourhood of the tropics, 

 wheat is also met with, but always subordinate to these other kinds of grain. 

 Besides rice and maize, there are, in the torrid zone, several kinds of grain, as 

 well as other plants, which supply the inhabitants with food, either used along 

 with them, or entirely occupying their place. Such are, in the New Continent, 

 Yams (Dioscorea alata), the Manihot (Jatropha manihot), and the Batatas 

 (Convolvulus batatas), the root of which, and the fruit of the Pisang (Banana, 

 Musa), furnish universal articles of food. In the same zone, in Africa, Doura 

 (Sorghum), Pisang, Manihot, Yams, and Arachis hypogaa. In the East 

 Indies, and on the Indian Islands, Eleusine coracana, E. stricta, Panicum fru- 

 mentaceum ; several Palms and Cycadere, which produce the Sago; Pisang, 

 Yams, Batatas, and the Bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa). In the islands of the 

 South Sea, grain of every kind disappears, its place being supplied by the 

 Bread-fruit tree, the Pisang, and Tacca pinnatifida. In the tropical parts of 

 New Holland there is no agriculture, the inhabitants living on the produce of 

 the Sago, of various Palms, and some species of Arum. 



" In the high lands of South America there is a distribution similar to that of 

 the degrees of latitude. Maize, indeed, grows to the height of 7200 feet above 

 the level of the sea, but only predominates between 3000 and 6000 of eleva- 

 tion. Below 3000 feet it is associated with the Pisang, and the above-men- 



