Food-Grains of India

Abstract

A WELL-WRITTEN, well-illustrated, and well-turned-out volume. Its thinness only enhances its elegance. Its illustrations, by Mr. G. W. Ruffles, are charming, clear, without hardness, and life-like. The text is interesting, and the number of food-grains described in excess of what most of us were aware existed. Prof. Church commences his work by what must have been to him a familiar task—describing the chief constituents of food, splitting up the sugars into their groups, and pointing out the differences between true nutrients and food-adjuncts. Part 2 is devoted to dietaries and rations. With Part 3 commences the peculiar merit and raison d'être of the work. After some remarks upon cereals generally, the reader is introduced seriatim to no fewer than twenty-three cereals, the only msmber of the group conspicuous by its absence being rye—a grain which occupies a very important place in Europe. The presumption is that it does not occur in India, but such a presumption surely presumes too much. Wheat is described as an annual grass of unknown origin, but we scarcely see why this nescience as to the origin of wheat should be especially set forth. Are we to infer that barley, oats, maize, rice, the millets, &c., are annual grasses of known origin? If so, would that the Professor had devoted a few lines in each case to this particular point! The origin of our food-grains is a deeply interesting subject, veiled, we are afraid, for the most part in mist, and only conjecturally outlined.

Food-Grains of India.

By A. H. Church. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1886.)