398 The Graminece under Economic Aspects. [Sess. 



or July — and reaped in October and November. Wheat and 

 barley are in India winter-harvest crops. 



Coix lachryma, or Job's tears, is an annual grass occurring 

 as a weed of cultivation in the rice-fields of Bengal. Through- 

 out Assam and Eastern India this coarse millet is an important 

 food of the hill tribes. 



We now come to Maize — Zea mays — often called Indian 

 corn, or in France Bl^ de Turkie. About 2 J million acres 

 are under this crop in India, and it shares the empire with 

 rice in Africa. As a food it is more used in North and South 

 America than in other continents. Immense quantities of 

 starch are manufactured from maize, both for laundry and 

 dietetic purposes. The dried leaves are used as winter fodder, 

 and the stalks for thatch and making baskets. 



Our next grass is in one respect the most important of all, 

 for on Oryza sativa, or Eice, more human beings depend than 

 on any other cereal. It is the sustenance of the teeming 

 multitudes of Asia and Africa. It is an annual grass, with 

 six stamens, and the most important varieties are semi-aquatic. 

 There is little doubt but that it is of Asiatic origin. As a food 

 it is not equal to wheat, as the flour of rice is almost entirely 

 composed of starch, having little gluten, but it forms a valuable 

 diet for rich and poor. In Europe its cultivation is confined 

 to two districts — viz., the plains of Lombardy and the province 

 of Valencia in Spain. In America the rice-growing states are 

 South Carolina, Louisiana, and Georgia, the first-named state 

 producing the finest rice in the world. 



We shall now consider that very important member of the 

 Graminese, Saccharum officinarum — the Sugar-cane. Sugar is 

 a carbonaceous substance, which contributes to the develop- 

 ment of animal heat, in distinction to those vegetable products 

 which contain nitrogen, and are of special use in the nutrition 

 of the body. The cane has been known in India from time 

 immemorial, and in that country sugar was first prepared in 

 a dry granular state. The sugar - cane is now cultivated 

 mainly in the East and West Indies, the southern states of 

 the United States of America, Central America, and Brazil, 

 Molasses is that part of the cane-juice that will not crystal- 

 lise. It is fermented and distilled for the production of rum 

 or other spirit. 



