PART III. 



THE CEREALS. 



THE grain of the grasses is a complete fruit ; in a few familiar 

 cases (barley) it commonly retains as an additional and firmly- 

 attached covering a pair of paleae. In all cases where these 

 floral envelopes adhere to the winnowed grain they must be 

 removed by some mechanical operation before the cereal can 

 be used as human food ; the harshness of these envelopes as 

 well as the indigestibility of the large amount of fibre which 

 they contain necessitate this treatment. 



A considerable and often excessive proportion of starch is 

 a characteristic feature of the composition of these grains. This 

 constituent is present in largest proportion in the two millets, 

 ragi and koda, and in cleaned, that is, husked rice ; in wheat, 

 and many of the millets, the percentage of this nutrient is 

 lower. Most of the larger cereal grains, which have been tested 

 for sugar, have been found to contain a small proportion of that 

 compound, or rather, at least two different kinds of sugar have 

 been found in them, although the total amount of saccharine 

 substance in well-ripened corn probably does not exceed 2 

 per cent. For the purposes of this work it is quite unneces- 

 sary to distinguish between such sugar and the starch present 

 in these grains ; in consequence, the starch and sugar with the 

 dextrin, gum, and similar matters will always be found, in 

 the following pages, under the single heading of " starch." It 

 must not, however, be supposed that the starch of all these 

 grains is absolutely identical in feeding value, for this substance, 



