MAIZE. 23 



proportion of two parts by weight of the former to one of the latter, 

 and flavored with juniper. Some peculiar process however is used by 

 Dutch distillers, as all attempts to make the same quality here have 

 failed. The common bread of the people about the Baltic is made of 

 rye, which is largely exported from Prussian ports. Of the 650.000 

 bushels exported from Dantzic in 1830, (which is about the annual ex- 

 port,) three-eights was taken to Holland for distillation. A million of 

 bushels of rye and 200.000 of wheat are exported from Archangel an- 

 nually and 400.000 of the first from Riga. In 1829 a million of bush- 

 els were exported from St. Petersburgh. The crop of the United States 

 last year, 1842, was 22.762.952 bushels 5 of which Pennsylvania and 

 New-York were the greatest producers. Rye cakes are the principal 

 food of the peasants in Sweden. These are baked twice a year and are 

 therefore as hard as a board. Rye is sown mixed with barley in Lap- 

 land and with wheat in France, and thus mixed, is made into bread. 



Jl disease attacks rye which renders it noxious and even poisonous. 

 It is thus called horned-rye, or ergot, the grain resembling a cock's spur. 

 A wet spring and hot summer are the attendants of this disease. It 

 is an excrescence or irregular vegetation, 1% inches long, springing from 

 between the grain and leaf. Bread made of rye thus diseased has a 

 nauseous acrid taste and produces spasms and gangreens. Many fatal 

 epidemics have widely prevailed in Europe where this grain is cultiva- 

 ted. The first symptoms are apparent drunkenness, after which the 

 toe-s mortify and fall off and then the disease extends upwards to the 

 trunk, even after amputating the limbs. Insects, poultry and other 

 animals are also fatally affected by it; even flies that light upon it die 

 with convulsions. But, singular as it may seem, this poison is admit- 

 ted into practice as a medicine. Rye is apt to be confounded with 

 rye grass and by some with rag-grass. 



MAIZE or Indian Corn, zea mays, C. 2, 0. 3, Graminse, sp. 2, Ds. 

 A. 3-12 ft. The name zea implies to live. There are numerous varie- 

 ties of this important plant, but only two species ; these differ in time 

 of growth, quality, etc. but the varieties differ, from peculiarities of 

 culture, soil and climate. Maize is cultivated in a wider range of cli- 

 mate than most other grains ; and, next to wheat, is the most import- 

 ant grain in utility in this country. It is evidently more stimulating 

 than any other of the cereal grains ; and wherever Indian corn forms the 

 principal food, the people are strong and hardy. It is convertible in- 

 to human food in a greater variety of forms than any other grain, and 

 no crop is more beneficial to the American farmer. No crop returns 

 more to the soil, and none is better fitted perhaps for fattening domes- 

 tic animals. A religious reputation is attached to the Valparaiso 

 maize, from its splitting, when roasted, into the form of a cross; and 

 it has been denominated here, in view of its importance, a magnum 

 JDei donum. Two crops are often raised annually in the western states. 



