102 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



ordinary food, are for the most part strong and hardy 

 races. The produce of maize, on a given extent of 

 cultivation, is greater than that of any other grain ; 

 and the proportional return for the quantity of seed 

 committed to the ground is equally advantageous. 



JVo argument can be founded either way upon 

 the liking or disliking of individuals. Man is in 

 this, as well as in most other respects, very much 

 the creature of habit ; and preferences, both national 

 and individual, are often shown by him, in regard to 

 articles of food, which would be wholly incompre- 

 hensible upon any other ground. We need not go 

 beyond the bounds of Europe for abundant proofs of 

 this fact, if indeed such are not offered by our own 

 personal observation. It falls within the knowledge 

 of the writer, that a gentteman wko in his boyish 

 days had been nurtured in a village on the coast, in 

 a remote part of Scotland, acquired such a fondness 

 for some weed thrown up by the sea, and which 

 through the poverty of the inhabitants was made 

 to form part of their sustenance, that in after-life, 

 and when he had returned from a protracted resi- 

 dence abroad, he procured a supply of his favourite 

 weed to be regularly sent to him in London, and 

 ate as the greatest delicacy that upon which the 

 members of his iamily could only look with disgust. 



Of all the cerealia, maize is the least subject to 

 disease. Blight, mildew, or rust, are unknown to it. 

 It is never liable to be beaten down by rain, or by the 

 most violent storms of wind ; and in climates and 

 seasons which are favourable to its growth and ma- 

 turity, the only enemies which the maize farmer has 

 to dread are insects in the early stages, and birds in 

 the later periods of its cultivation. 



AMERICAN INDIAN CORN is the largest known 

 variety of maize. It is found growing wild in 

 many of the West-Indian islands, as well as in 



