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for the poorer people, who sell it largely for export, and consume 
the cheaper and coarser millet. It is noteworthy that this grain 
is the seed of one variety of the same plant that yields our broom- 
corn and our sorghum sugar-cane. It is a more nutritious food 
than rice, which, contrary to popular lore, is of very low dietetic 
alue. eaten in the unpolished state, rice is much more 
nutritious, since its richest layer is jee under the surface, and is 
removed in the polishing. Very often, however, insect 
exist in this outer layer, and unpolished rice thus becomes ae 
to the attack of the weevil. Rice is more largely eaten in China 
and Japan, dhouro among the poorer classes of India and Africa. 
n the American tropics, maize or Indian corn is the chief grain. 
Travellers in Mexico always marvel at the vastness of the areas 
that they see planted with this crop. For miles upon miles the 
trains pass through fields of maize which reach as far as one can 
see in each direction. At short distances are little shelter boxes 
on stilts fifteen or twenty feet high, in which a watcher with a 
gun may be concealed and ready to shoot marauding trespassers. 
This corn, prepared in various ways, but mostly in tortillas, 
constitutes the staple food of the Mexican peon, and he certainly 
preserves a remarkable strength by its use. All through the 
South American tropics it is one of the sranles and is, in the 
parched state, the chief reliance upon long foot-journeys. In 
the more luxuriant regions, storage is not necessary, since it may 
be planted, and at the same time a ee harvested, upon any 
day of the year. It has numerous and destructive enemies, 
ane and animal, which attack se stalk and g T. 
grain is specially liable to the attacks of worms, the eee from 
a deposited in the young grains. In many sections, amie 
n the Orinoco Valley, a al breeding process has developed 
varieties with an extremely horny epidermis to the grains, eee 
resists the efforts of the egg depositor. 
Am edible seeds and nuts, the bean probably holds the 
first ae if we include all of its numerous genera, species and 
varieties. Otherwise, this place must be accorded to the peanut, 
for probably no one kind of bean is so largely used in the tropics 
proper. Although the peanut is largely consumed in the East 
