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feet in height, and standing so close that it was difficult to force 
a way between the stalks. The yield was fifteen and eighteen 
fold. 
A species of Eleusine is cultivated in Japan and some parts of 
India as a corn crop. Panicum miliaceum (Indian millet), Panicum 
pilosum (Chadlee), and Panicum frumentaceum are also culti- 
vated in India, yielding a nutritious grain. Paspalum exile pro- 
duces fundi, or fundungi, the smallest known grain. The grains 
of Pennisatum dichotomum, another grass, are used in the same 
region as food under the name of Kasheia. The Abyssinian 
corn plant, teff, is known to science as Poa Abyssinica. German 
millet is produced by Setaria Germanica, and Italian millet by 
Setaria Italica, both largely used as food. The seeds of Zizania 
aquatica are popularly known in Canada as swamp rice, a service- 
able grain. Glyceria or Poa aquatica (Manna grass) is a singular 
example of the seeds of a wild grass used as food. Sir William 
Hooker, in his “ British Flora,” tells us that they are gathered 
abundantly in Holland, where as well as in Poland and Germany, 
they are used as food, and he quotes de Theis as having “ seen 
the Polanders in the suite of King Stanisiaus gather them with 
great care on the banks of the Meurthe.” 
With all this the list of cereal grasses is not nearly exhausted ; 
indeed, with one or two exceptions, the seeds of all the species of 
the numerous natural order of Graminez are edible, the only 
apparent obstacle to the profitable cultivation of the plants that 
produce them being their diminutive size, which might probably 
be increased by cultivation. 
But a notice, however brief, of the food products from the 
cereals would be incomplete without a reference to some of the 
beverages they furnish, several of which are of great antiquity- 
For some reason, religious or climatic, the vine was not cultivated 
in ancient Egypt, although in modern times at least it is 
extensively grown in Nubia. The Egyptians, according to 
Herodotus, used a substitute made from barley, a sort of beer. 
In other parts of Africa malt liquor of one kind or another is 
brewed by the natives from some one or other of the cereal 
grasses. The seeds of Holcus Sorghum are used in Africa in the 
manufacture of a kind of beer, bearing the appropriate name of 
bouza. Barley, we all know, is extensively employed in this 
country in the manufacture of beer as well as whisky. From 
rice a spirit is also distilled in the east, generally known as arrack, 
