e yield of the chief wheat-growing
countries in bushels per acre:

Denmark 42
England 29
New Zealand 26
Germany 23.2
Holland & Belgium 21.5
Hungary 18.5
France 19.5
Austria 16.3
Canada 15.5
United States 12.3
Argentina 12.2
Italy 12.1
Australia 10
India 9.2
Russia 8.6
Algeria 7.5

The low average in Australia, India, and Algeria is due mainly to lack
of rainfall; in the United States and Russia, mainly to unskilful
cultivation.

[29] It seems to have been introduced into Turkey from India about the
latter part of the fifteenth century, after which it was occasionally
heard of in Europe as "Turkey corn."

[30] The "tortilla," the national bread of the Mexican, consists of a
thick corn-meal paste pressed into thin wafers between the hands, and
baked on hot slabs of stone. The corn-meal "mush" of the American, the
"polenta" of the Italian, and the "mamaliga" of the Rumanian are all
practically corn-meal boiled to a thick paste in water.

[31] The gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, enabled one man to do by
machinery about the same amount of work as previously had required one
hundred laborers. For want of the laws necessary to protect his
invention, Whitney was defrauded of the profits arising from it. Neither
Congress nor the courts gave him any relief from the numerous
infringements, and he died a poor man.

[32] The commercial distinction is a sensible one: hair is hard, crisp,
straight, and does not felt; wool is soft, curly, and felts readily.

[33] An ounce of eggs produces about forty thousand worms, and these,
during the grub stage, require about fifteen hundred pounds of leaves,
about one-half of which is actually consumed.

[34] Charles II. of England also forbade its use (1675) and attempted to
close the coffee-houses that had sprung up in London, but in spite of
the ban and the prohibitive tax laid upon it, the use of coffee became
general. Similar efforts to close the coffee-houses in Constantinople
failed.

[35] The full-grown leaf attains a length of from four to nine inches;
those picked rarely exceed one-and-a-half inches in length.

[36] Brick tea consists of leaves moulded into bricks under heavy
pressure. Refuse and stems are a