A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton.

  • John Barton
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on the geography of plants / By John Barton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    101/120 (page 87)
    pean corn does not succeed within the tropics, several other kinds of grain are plentifully cul- tivated there. One of these is Maize, or Indian Corn, which I have already referred to as raised in the south of Europe. It grows to the height of five or ten feet, and produces an ear as large as a cucumber, each grain being of the size of a pea. The quantity of food yielded by an acre of Maize is much greater than by an acre of Wheat or Barley, but the flour produced by it is coarse. This plant is a native of America. Another sort of grain abundantly raised in the torrid zone is called Millet: it grows somewhat in the manner of a reed, with a large, loose, feathery head. The seed is small and round, not unlike turnip or cabbage-seed. The ap- pearance of Rice and its mode of cultivation have been already described. Besides these, and some other species of grain which it might be tedious to describe, the inhabitants of the tropical regions cultivate a plant called the Ja- tropha Manihot} from the root of which .they prepare a kind of bread called cassava bread. For this purpose the root is first peeled, and then pressed in a bag made of rushes: the solid part which remains is the substance sold here under the name of tapioca, and employed in the torrid zone, as just mentioned, for making bread. It is not a little remarkable, that the juice which