THE MILLETS, OR SMALL-SEEDED FOOD-GRAINS. 



335 



cuttings a year below 32° nortli latitude, and makes a liay which 

 sheep, horses and cattle prefer to the best grass product known. The 

 fact that a rice-huller has been invented that will cost little more 

 than a coffee mill, and enable the good woman of the house to grind 

 out a meal of rice with as much ease as she would grind her mess of 

 coffee, and always have rice, or rice batter cakes or rice pudding on 

 the table, will make it a greater inducement than ever for every 

 family to plant a patch of rice. Sandy land, level and fertilized, is 

 best for upland rice. Land that will yield 25 or 30 bushels of corn 

 per acre will produce 50 bushels of rough grain, that will, when 

 hulled, leave 25 bushels of clean rice, say 1,200 pounds, that, at 5d. 

 a pound, would be worth 2U., and the straw is worth one-third more. 



The following shows the land under cultui-e with rice in some of 

 the principal producing countries as far as can be ascertained with any 

 precision : — 



Acres. 



Madras 4,000,000 



Bengal 35.000,000 



Cochin-China .. 700,000 



Ceylou 49i,592 



Pondiflierry and j 



other French pos-J 20,600 



sessions in India 



Acres. 



Java 5,500,000 



Menarlo 75,000 



Egypt 40,060 



Portugal 9,880 



Austria .. .. .. 1,398 



THE MILLETS, OR SMALL-SEEDED FOOD-GKAINS. 



The word millet has a widely extended signification, and embraces 

 the edible seeds of various grasses, very dissimilar in habit and appear- 

 ance. Li popular parlance the term is applied to almost all the small- 

 seeded edible grains. In many countries different millets form large 

 and important food-crops, and in some years considerable quantities 

 have been imported into the United Kingdom. In 1870, besides 

 Dhurra, we received 74,635 cwts. of millet, valued at 19,864Z. 



Thus in 1853 we received 158,159 cwts. of millet, in 1857 

 230,451 cwts. of millet, and 147,187 cwts. of Dari or Dhurra, 

 (S. vulgare) ; in 1870 74,635 cwts. of millet, valued at 19,864/., and 

 70,735 cwts. of Dhurra, valued at 19,491Z. 



In England the millets are very seldom, eaten as food, and yet 

 among the great variety of seed in this extensive group of plants (of 

 which we as yet know comparatively little in an economic point of 

 view) many form articles of large consumption in parts of Europe, 

 Asia, Africa, and the West Indies. They pass under a variety of 

 names in different localities ; in northern Africa the large-seeded 

 species is known as Dhurra, and this occasionally reaches Mark Laue 

 to be ground and mixed with flour. In the Yv" est India Islands it is 

 known as Guinea corn, in India as Jowarrie, in Southern Africa as 

 Kaf&r corn, in the United States as broom corn, and so on. 



Of these small food-grains Roxburgh remarks : " It is probable that 

 through the whole of southern Asia as many of the inhabitants live 

 on the various kinds of dry or small grain as upon rice, and they are 

 reckoned fully as wholesome as that is." 



Dr. Forbes Watson, in his treatise ' On the Composition and 

 Relative Value of the Food Grains of India,' also states that the 

 millets in India occupy a position second to none in the country, and 



