umania[30] for a long time. In recent years, however, its
use has become very popular in Europe.

[Illustration: CORN PRODUCTION]

In the United States by far the greater part of the crop is consumed
where it is grown, being used to fatten swine and cattle. The market
value of a pound of corn is about one-third of a cent; converted into
pork or beef, however, it is worth five or six times as much. By feeding
the corn to stock, therefore, a farmer may turn an unmarketable product
into one for which there is a steady demand.

[Illustration: CORN]

Although corn is not so essential a staple as wheat, it has a much wider
range of usefulness. The starch made from it is considered a delicacy
and is used very largely in America and Europe as an article of food.
Glucose, a cheap but wholesome substitute for sugar, is made from it;
from the oil a substitute for rubber is prepared; smokeless powder and
other explosives are made from the pith of the stalk; while a very
large part of the product is used in the manufacture of liquor.

=Rye.=--Rye is the seed of a cereal grass, _Secale cereale_, a plant
closely resembling wheat in external appearance. Rye will grow in soils
that are too poor for wheat; its northern limit is in latitudes somewhat
greater than that of wheat, also. It is an ideal crop for the sandy
plain stretching from the Netherlands into central Russia, and this
locality produces almost the whole yield. The world's crop is about one
and a half billion bushels, of which Russia produces nearly two-thirds.
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Japan grow nearly all the rest. It is
consumed where it is grown. In the United States the yearly product is
about twenty-five million bushels, about one-tenth of which is exported
to Europe. Rye-bread is almost always sour, and this fact is its chief
disadvantage.

=Barley.=--Barley is the seed of several species of cereal grass, mainly
_Hordeum distichum_ and _Hordeum vulgare_. It is one of the oldest-used
of bread-stuffs. It can be cultivated farther north than wheat, and
about as far within the tropics as corn; it has, therefore, very wide
limits. Formerly it was much used in northwestern Europe as a
bread-stuff, but in recent years it has been in part supplanted by wheat
and corn. Barley is a most excellent food for horses, and in California
is grown mainly for this purpose. Its chief use is for the manufacture
of the malt used in brewing.

The world's crop of barley is not f