CHAPTER XXXV. 

 GRAMINEiE [continued). CEREALS. 



In Europe perhaps the most familiar crops of the farm are wheat, 

 harley, rye, and oats. 



These crops, designated Cereals, are grown mainly for their 

 fruits or grains which form the most important food of mankind 

 and are also of great value as food for the stock of the farm. 



Besides being utilised as bread-corn large quantities of the 

 cereal grains are employed in the manufacture of starch, beer, 

 whisky, gin, and other spirits. 



Moreover, the cereals are frequently grown for green fodder and 

 the straw in a ripe state is fed to stock, made use of as litter, or 

 employed for thatching, and many similarly useful purposes. 



The common cereals of the tropics are rice, maize, millet, and 

 sorghum or dourra, but these, with the exception of maize, which 

 is occasionally eqiployed in a green state as horse and cattle 

 fodder or made into silage, have no practical interest for the 

 farmer of this country. 



The cereals are grasses and therefore possess general char- 

 acters described in the last chapter ; they are, however, of such 

 importance that further treatment of their peculiarities is needed. 



Fruit and Germination of Seed. — (a) An account of the 

 fruit and the germination of the embryo of wheat has previously 

 been given (chap, ii.) ; the grain of rye is similar to this in 

 almost all respects, but the roots of its embryo are generally four 

 in number instead of three as in wheat. 



(p) In barley the caryopsis or fruit is firmly united with the 

 enclosing flowering glume and pale, and the plumule of the 



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