The seeds of all the Graminem, those of the darnel alone excepted, are capable by cultivation of becoming alimentary. The value of grains, generally speaking, is directly as the size of the caryopsis, and inversely as the thickness of the pericarp. When the grain abounds in perisperm, it is heavy ; when the envelope is thick, the grain is, on the contrary, light. Thus 100 of wheat, 450 grains. I 100 of rye, 260 grains. 100 of barley, 335 „ I 100 of oats, 250 „ .As • Dr. Royle has forcibly pointed out, the slightest enlargement in the size of a,grain, or the least increase in the productiveness of an ear of corn, when extended into the agriculture of a country, will infinitely increase its resources and rev enues.
The chemical composition of the grain influences materially the quality of the resulting bread. If the gluten be absent, no fermentation takes place in the dough ; if the gluten be in excess, the bread is heavy and acid. Wheat flour may be considered the type of all that is suitable for alimentary purposes, and in the degree of devia tion from this standard consists the inferiority of the other grains. It is very largely used by the races occupying. Hindustan, Rajputana, the N.W. Provinces of India, in the Panjab and in Afghan istan, but almost wholly in the' form of unleavened cakes or chapatti, prepared on the girdle; for most of the Hindu people of India, as a rule, are prohibited by their religion or prejudices from partaking of food prepared by others, many of them even of food of which others have seen the preparation ; and as the stricter Mahomedans object to use leavened bread, from the use of the toddies or fermented palm-wines as a leaven, unfermented bread, or porridge of flour and water, with perhaps the addition of salt, are alone employed. As a leaven for bread, the substances employed axe yeast in Europe, and the palm wines or toddies in Eastern and Southern Asia ; and the substitutes for these are sesqui-carbonate of anamonia, carbonate of soda and hydrochloric acid, or carbonate of soda and tartaxie acid.
Several calculations have been made to ascer tain the available supply of food for India. Sir Arthur Cotton estimates that two acres of rice land will feed seven people for a year ; and Mr. Fischer, the manager of the Shevagunga estate, considers that a family of five will consume under 6 lbs. of grain per diem.
It is estimated that in the Madras Presidency, 15 millions of acres of dry land, and hi- millions of wet land, are devoted to the production of food grains ; also that an acre of the best rice land will yield from 1080 Madras measures in the southern districts, to 1200 measures in Godavery and Kurnool, i.e. from 30 to 33 cwt. ; and the worst rice land in those two districts varies from 300 to 533 measures, i.e. from 8 to 14 cwt. Pro
bably, therefore, 20 cwt. of paddy or rice in the husk, or 10 cwt. of cleaned rice, may be taken as a good average of produce of irrigated land ; and 190 measures, or about 5 cwt., that of dry land, whether it be devoted to Eleusine coracana or ragi, Penicillaria spicata or cumboo, and Sorghum vnlgare or cholum, or any other of the unirrigated crops which form the food staple of the poorer classes. One acre of wet land will thus produce as much food as two acres of dry land ; and 55 million cwt. of rice, and 75 million cwt. of dry grains, was the estimated amount of produce in the Madras Presidency, when it had a population of 26,539,052 souls. This allows about 5 cwt. per soul per annum. Mr. Dalyell estimated the annual yield at 129 million cwt., or lbs. daily for each person ; whereas he considers that a family of five can subsist on 7 lbs. per day, and three acres of superior land supposing one acre to be irrigated, or four acres of unirrigated land, would support such a family for a year. The Madras Presidency, with a long seaboard, both imports and exports largely food articles, the exports exceeding the imports five or six times, and perhaps one-third of the population occasionally use animal substances, as additions to their vegetable diet.
Animals of every @ass — quadrtipeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, and their larvtn--are used by man as food, and aro acknowledged to contain a very large amount of alimentary substancea, and these are classed as the nutritious protelnaceous or nitrogenous articles of diet. Thero aro few living creatures in the south and east of Asia, which some one or other of ita multitudinous races do not use as food,-the horse, the bullock, the tiger, and all the cat tribe ; the dog, birds of all kinds, birds of prey excepted; almost every fish, frogs, snakes, ants, beetles, and their larva, ; erustacea and molluscs of every kind ; and the bodies of animals that have been killed or have died, aro all utilized. The Ilindn Brahman and Rajput and Vaisya, as a rule, will not eat animal food, and no Hindu can eat the cow without ceasing to be of the fonr Hinclu castes ; but all. Sudra Hindus eat sheep, goats, fowls, mutton, fish; and the servile races eat nearly all epuid rnpeds, many birds and reptiles, amongst them field rats and frogs. The majority of northern Brahmans may and do eat animal food, generally . inutton or fish, though priests, while officiating as such, perhaps do not. For although most Ilindu priests are Brahmans, all Brahmans are not 1 priests • as amongst the Jews the tribe of Levi furnished the priesthood, so among Hindus it is largely furnished from that of Brahmans.