266 THE GEOGRAPHY 



properly to be regarded as the principal food. First in 

 Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia does the Rye become 

 the peculiar bread-corn ; and Wheat takes its place beside 

 it in the north of Great Britain and Germany, as the Rye 

 before joined Barley. In the centre of Germany, in the 

 south of Great Britain, in France, and in a wide range 

 toward the East, including the whole of the Caspian Sea, 

 Wheat is the prevailing cultivated plant, which in the 

 basin of the Mediterranean and throughout North 

 America is associated with Maize. Rice takes the place 

 of the latter in Egypt and in northern India, and holds 

 undisputed rule in the peninsulas of India, in China, Japan 

 and the East Indian Islands, shares it in the west coast of 

 Africa with Maize, which, on the other hand, is the 

 exclusively cultivated corn-plant of the greatest part of 

 tropical America, with only some unimportant exceptions. 

 In southern America, Africa and Australia, Wheat again 

 enters the field, with the decreasing temperature. The 

 culture of Tef* and Tocusso^ in Abyssinia, of Millet}: 

 in western Africa and Arabia, as well as of Eleusine^ and 

 Millet! in the East Indies, are quite of subordinate 

 importance. 



Some other plants bear a far more important share in 

 the nutrition of mankind than the Grasses last named. 

 Even in the most northern zone of the Barley and Rye, the 

 Buckwheat is an object of tolerably extensive culture. 

 With the already named Banana, the Yams,* * the Mandiocff 

 and the Batatas jj contribute largely to the daily food of 



* Poa Abyssinica. f Eleusine Tocusso. 

 % Sorghum vulgare, and others. 



Eleusine coracana and stricta. || Panicum frumentaceum. 



** Dioscorea sativa. ft Manihot utilissima. 



U Batatas edulis. 



