10 FIELD, FOREST AND FARM 



" Maize, or Indian corn, is the staple food of South 

 America, as rice is that of Asia. Many call it Turk- 

 ish wheat, a name doubly inappropriate, for in the 

 first place this grain is not indigenous to Turkey, 

 but to America, and in the second place it has noth- 

 ing in common with the wheat from which bread is 

 made. From America its cultivation has spread to 

 our part of the globe. 



"The ear of maize is very large and is composed 

 of full, rounded kernels, yellow and shiny, closely 

 packed in regular rows. Like rice, maize furnishes 

 a fine flour of pleasing appearance but lacking in 

 one essential: it contains no gluten. Hence the 

 utter impossibility of using either rice or maize for 

 making bread, despite the good appearance of the 

 flour .made from them. 



"Nevertheless maize is a very wholesome article 

 of food, and one of great value in the country, where 

 the appetite is sharpened by open air and hard work. 

 Only it is not in the form of bread that it best yields 

 its nourishment, but rather in that of porridge, or 

 boiled meal and water." 



