CHAPTER IV. 



THE principal cereal plants which cannot be pro- 

 fitably cultivated in Great Britain, but upon which 

 the inhabitants of other countries depend for sub- 

 sistence in even a greater degree than the English 

 peasantry depend upon the supply of wheat, are rice, 

 maize, and millet. The seeds of these plants are 

 less palatable than wheat, and less nutritious than 

 that or any other of the cerealia already described : 

 the chief cause of this last mentioned inferiority ap- 

 pears to be the absolute absence of gluten from their 

 composition. 



The three grains just mentioned will be treated of 

 in the order wherein they are here set down, which is 

 likewise the order of their importance, considered with 

 reference to the number of human beings who draw 

 from them their sustenance. 



RICE Oryza saliva. This is a panicled grass, 

 bearing, when in ear, a nearer resemblance to barley 

 than to any other of the corn-plants grown in Eng- 

 land. The seed grows on separate pedicles springing 

 from the main stalk ; each grain is terminated with 

 an awn or beard, and is inclosed in a rough yellow 

 husk, the whole forming a spiked panicle. The stalk 

 is not unlike that of wheat, but the joints are more 

 numerous. The farina of rice is almost entirely com- 

 posed of starch, having little or no gluten, and being 

 without any ready formed saccharine matter. The 

 outer husk clings with great tenacity to the grain, and 

 is only to be detached from it by passing the rice 



