Cattle are voraciously fond of the leaves and stems, which are very sweet, and even the dry straw, which Dr. Buchanan surmises may be the reason why it is not more generally cultivated by the natives, as the difficulty would be great to preserve the crop.  So slow is the progress of changes in the regions of India, that near Kaliyachak, though the people give all other straw to their cattle, yet they burn that of maize as unfit for fodder.  In Nepaul the stalks, with the leaves attached, often twelve feet long, cut by the sickle, are used as fodder for elephants, bedding for cattle, and as fuel.  The maize crop within the hills of Nepaul suffers much from the inroads of bears, which are very numerous in these regions, and extremely partial to this grain.  The average return from this crop is seldom below fifty seers, ranging frequently far above it.[42] Maize is increasing in cultivation in Java, and some of the Eastern islands.  It is found to have the advantage there over mountain rice, of being more fruitful and hardy, and does not suffer from cold until the mean temperature falls to 45 deg. of Fahrenheit, and no heat is injurious to it.  Several varieties of it are known, but for all practical purposes these resolve themselves into two kinds:  one, a small grain, requiring five months to ripen, and a larger one, which takes seven to mature.  In some provinces of Java it yields a return of 400 or 500 fold.  Mr. Crawfurd found, from repeated trials, that in the soil of Mataram, in Java, an acre of land, which afforded a double crop, produced of the smaller grain 8481/2 lbs. annually.

RICE.

This is one of the most extensively diffused and useful of grain crops, and supports the greatest number of the human race.  The cultivation prevails in Eastern and Southern Asia, and it is also a common article of subsistence in various countries bordering on the Mediterranean.  It is grown in the Japan Islands, on all the sea coasts of China, the Philippine and other large Islands of the Indian Archipelago, partially in Ceylon, Siam, India, both shores of the Red Sea, Egypt, the shores of the Mozambique Channel, Madagascar, some parts of Western Africa, South Carolina, and Central America.  Three species only are enumerated by Lindley:—­Oryza sativa, the common rice, a native of the East; O. latifolia, a species having its habitat in South America; and O.  Nepalensis, common in Nepaul.  But there are a host of varieties known in the East; these, however, may for all practical purposes, be resolved into two kinds—­the upland or mountain rice (O.  Nepalensis, the O. mutica, of Roxburgh), and the lowland or aquatic species (O. sativa).

Zizania aquatica is exceedingly prolific of bland, farinaceous seeds, which afford a kind of rice in Canada and North-West America, where it abounds wild in all the shallow streams.  The seeds contribute essentially to the support of the wandering tribes of Indians, and feed immense flocks of wild swans, geese, and other water fowl.  Pinkerton says, this plant seems intended to become the bread-corn of the North.  Two other species of Zizania are common in the United States of America.