1 86 NATURE STUDY. 



As a conclusion to this series of articles on the most use- 

 ful family of plants, I will give a few facts relating to those 

 grasses known as cereals, of which the value lies princi- 

 pally in the seeds. In the United States these are, in the 

 order of their total annual value, corn, wheat, oats, barley 

 and rye, to which must be added rice and the recently in- 

 troduced Kafir corn, a species of sorghum, valuable for its 

 grain. In the census reports buckwheat is classed with the 

 cereals ; as it is not a grass, but a member of the knotweed 

 family, ( Polygonacese), it is excluded from our present 

 consideration. In American reports, by the way, corn 

 means only Indian corn or maize. 



R)^e is much less used in America than in Europe, being 

 less esteemed for making bread. Pennsj-lvania, New York 

 and Wisconsin raise nearly half of the total product. 

 Whether its emplo\'ment in the manufacture of whisky 

 and malt liquors would come under the head of proper use, 

 is a question with regard to which there might be diver- 

 gence of opinion. The same with respect to barley, which 

 is largely employed in the process of brewing ales and 

 beers. Barley is the most important cereal of the far north, 

 growing in Norway as far up as latitude 70 deg. Califor- 

 nia leads in the production of barley in the United States. 

 The product of oats in this country is greater in bulk of 

 grain but less in value than that of wheat. The grain is 

 principally cultivated as food for horses, though it is con- 

 .stantl}^ gaining in popularity as a breakfa.st food. Being 

 deficient in gluten, it does not make good bread. It is the 

 most nutritious of all the grains, containing more nitrogen- 

 ous matter than soft wheats, and more fats than any of the 

 other cereals. In the South and in California oat hay is 

 extensively used as fodder. Wheat, in itself the most val- 

 uable of the cereals, yields the next to the largest crop in 

 this country. Its paramount value is too well known to 

 require special note here. The largest cereal crop, both 



