Chemical analysis, like common experience, shows that Indian corn is a very nutritious article of food, being richer in albuminoids than any other cereals when ripe (calculated in the dry weight). It can be grown in the tropics from the level of the sea to a height equal to that of the Pyrenees and in the south and middle of Europe, but it cannot be grown in England with any chance of profit, except perhaps as fodder. Frost kills the plant in all its stages and all its varieties; and the crop does not flourish well if the nights are cool, no matter how favourable the other conditions. Consequently it is the first crop to disappear as one ascends into the mountain regions, and comparatively little is grown west of the great plains of North America. In Brittany, where it scarcely ripens the grain, it furnishes a strong crop in the autumn upon sandy soil where clover and lucerne will yield but a poor produce. It prefers a deep, rich, warm, dry and mellow soil, and hence the rich bottoms and fertile prairies of the Mississippi basin constitute the region of its greatest production. It is extensively grown throughout India, both for the ripe grain and for use of the unripe cob as a green vegetable. It is the most common crop throughout South Africa, where it is known as mealies, being the staple food of the natives. It is also largely used for fodder and is an important article of export. As an article of food maize is one of the most extensively used grains in the world. Although rich in nitrogenous matter and fat, it does not make good bread. A mixture of rye and corn meal, however, makes an excellent coarse bread, formerly much used in the Atlantic states, and a similar bread is now the chief coarse bread of Portugal and some parts of Spain. It is either baked into cakes, called _tortilla_ by the Indians of Yucatan, or made into a kind of porridge, as in Ireland. When deprived of the gluten it constitutes oswego, maizena or corn flour. Maize contains more oil than any other cereal, ranging from 3.5 to 9.5% in the commercial grain. This is one of the factors in its value for fattening purposes. In distilling and some other processes this oil is separated and forms an article of commerce. When maize is sown, broadcast or closely planted in drills the ears may not develop at all, but the stalk is richer in sugar and sweeter; and this is the basis of growing "corn-fodder." The amount of forage that may be produced in this way is enormous; 50,000 to 80,000 lb. of green fodder are grown per acre, which makes 8000 to 12,000 lb. as field-cured. Sugar and molasses have from time to time been manufactured from the corn stalks. See articles on corn and _Zea Mays_ in L. H. Bailey's _Cyclopaedia of American Horticulture_ (1900-1902); and for cultivation in India, Watt's _Dictionary of the Economic Products of India_, vi. (1893).