;i 1 



PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. 



III. 



in reaping maize. No giain is easier to thresh, or to free from its husk by the mill. It 

 is used instead of rice, and in Germany bears about the same price. It produces a great 

 bulk of straw, which is much esteemed as fodder. 



5184. The great Indian millet will grow in this country to the height of five or six 

 feet ; but will not ripen its seeds, or even flower, if the season is not dry and warm. If 

 its culture is attempted, it should be raised in a hotbed and transplanted. 



SuBSKCT. 4. Riccy and some other Cereal Grdmina. 



5185. The rice (Oryza sativa, /ig. 739.) has been tried in this country, and, if sown 

 " very early, would probably ripen its seeds. The hill variety, which 



does not require watering, would probably succeed best. But there is 



no inducement to cultivate this and other grains or seeds when they 



can be imported at so low a rate. We merely introduce them to 



record the resources of British agriculture in case of necessity. 



5186. The Zizdnia aqudtica [fig. 740.) might be cultivated on the 



margin of ponds for its seeds, which 



much resemble those of Polish millet. 



It is exceedingly prolific, grows in great 



luxuriance, and produces abundance of 



bland farinaceous seeds, in all the shallow 



streams of the dreary wilderness in north- 

 west America, between the Canadian lakes , 



and the hilly range which divides Canada 



from the country on the Northern Pacific 



Ocean. Its seeds contribute essentially 



to the support of the wandering tribes of j 



Indians, and feed immense flocks of wild 



swans, geese, and other water fowl, which 



resort there for the purpose of breeding. 



Productive as is this excellent plant, and 



habituated to an ungenial climate, and to 



situations which refuse all culture, it is 

 surprising, says Pinkerton (Geog. vol. iii. p. 330.), that the 

 European settlers in the more northern parts of America 

 have as yet taken no pains to cultivate and improve a vegetable production which seems 

 intended by nature to become, at some future period, the bread corn of the north, 



5187. The Gli/ceriajiidtans resembles the Zizania, and the seeds are used in Germany 

 like those of Polish millet. Various species of PAnicum, ilordeum, and ^romus afford 

 tolerable supplies of edible seeds. 



5188. 21ie Imck-ioheat (Polygonum Fagopyrum ; Riz, Fr. ; Reiss, Ger. ; Riso, Ital. ; 

 Arroz, Span. ) is vulgarly considered as a grain ; but not being a bread-corn grass, we 

 have classed it among manufactorial plants. (Chap. VIII. Sect. IV.) 



Chap. III. 



Culture of Leguminous Field-Plants, the Seeds of which are used as Food for Man or 



Cattle. 



5189. The seeds of the cultivated legumes are considered to be the most nutritive of 

 vegetable substances grown in temperate climates. They contain a large proportion of 

 matter analogous to animal substances, having when dry the appearance of glue, and being 

 as nourishing as gluten. To the healthy workman this substance supplies the place of 

 animal food ; and Von Thaer states, that in Germany neither sailors nor land labourers 

 are content unless they receive a meal of legumes at least twice a week. The straw or 

 haulm, he says, cut before it is dead ripe, is more nourishing than that of any of the cereal 

 grasses. But leguininous plants are not only more than all others nourishing to man 

 and animals, but even to vegetables they may be said to supply food ; since they "are not 

 only known to be less exhausting to the soil than most other plants, but some of them, 

 and more especially the lupine, have been ploughed in green as manure from the earliest 

 times. Many scientific agriculturists consider a luxuriant crop of peas or tares as 

 nourishing the soil by stagnating carbonic acid gas on its surface ; which corresponds 

 with the imiversal opinion of their being equal to a fallow, and with the value set on 

 them in rotation, as already explained. (4939.) Two reasons may be given for the cir- 

 cumstance of peas and tares not exhausting the land so much as other crops : first, because 

 they form a complete shade for the ground ; and next, because they drop so many of the 



