rain; another
is called _morocho_, and has small yellow grain of a horny appearance;
_amarello_, or the yellow, has a large yellow opaque grain, and is
more farinaceous than the two former varieties; _blanco_, white--this
variety is large, and contains more farina than the former; and
_cancha_, or sweet maize. The last is only cultivated in the colder
climates of the mountains; it grows about two feet high, the cob is
short, and the grains large and white; when green, it is very bitter,
but when ripe and roasted, it is particularly sweet, and so tender
that it may be reduced to flour between the fingers. In this roasted
state it constitutes the principal food of the mountaineers of several
provinces.

The natives remove the husk from the maize by putting it into water
with a quantity of wood ashes, exposing it to a boiling heat, and
washing the grain in running water, when the husk immediately
separates from the grain.

In Jamaica I found maize to produce two crops in the year, and often
three. It is usually grown there on the banks or ridges of the cane
fields. It may be planted at any time when there is rain, and it
yields from fifteen to forty bushels per acre, according to the
richness of the soil, and the more or less close manner in which it is
planted.

In the colony of New South Wales, including the district of Port
Phillip, there were 20,798 acres under cultivation with maize in 1844,
the produce from which was returned at 575,857 bushels; 27,058 bushels
of maize were exported from Sydney in 1848.

_Culture in the East Indies_.--The growers on the hills of Nepaul
reckon three kinds of maize: a white grained species, which is
generally grown on the hill sides; a yellow grained one, grown in the
low and hot valleys; and a smaller one, called "Bhoteah," or "Murilli
Makii," which is considered the sweetest of the three, but from being
less productive is not generally grown on good lands. Maize thrives
best on a siliceous, well-drained, rich soil. A correspondent in my
"Colonial Magazine," vol. ii. p. 309, says the finest Indian corn he
ever saw was in the Himalayas of the Sikim-range, where the soil
consists of a substratum of decomposed _mica_ from the under or rocky
stratum, with a superstratum of from three to six inches of decayed
vegetable matter, from leaves, &c., of the ancient forests.

Throughout Hindostan, June is the usual time for sowing. In Behar,
about two seers are usually sown upon a beggah;