The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom / Considered in Their Various Uses to Man and in Their Relation to the Arts and Manufactures; Forming a Practical Treatise & Handbook of Reference for the Colonist, Manufacturer, Merchant, and Consumer, on the Cultivation, Preparation for Shipment, and Commercial Value, &c. of the Various Substances Obtained From Trees and Plants, Entering into the Husbandry of Tropical and Sub-tropical Regions, &c.

by P. L. Simmonds

Among culmiferous plants and legumes used in the East, are the Panicum italicum, P. miliaceum, Eleusine coracana (the meal of which is baked and eaten in Ceylon under the name of Corakan flour), and Paspalum of several varieties. The pigeon pea (Cytisus Cajan), and a very valuable and prolific species of bean, called the Mauritius black bean (Mucuna utilis), growing even in the poorest soil, is cultivated in India and Ceylon. Sorghum vulgare is the principal grain of Southern Arabia, and the stems are also used extensively for feeding cattle. The plant bears its Indian name of joar, or juri, and is cultivated throughout Western Hindostan. Job's tears (Croix lachryma) is another cereal grass, native of the East Indies.

MILLET.

Millet of different kinds is met with in the hottest parts of Africa, in the South of Europe, in Asia Minor, and in the East Indies. It is a small yellowish seed, growing in dense panicles or clusters, the produce of a grassy plant with large and compact seeds, growing to the height, in India, of seven or eight feet.

The millets, known to Europeans as petit mais, are tropical or sub-tropical crops. In India they hold a second rank to rice alone; and in Egypt, perhaps, surpass all other crops in importance. In Western Africa they are the staff of life. The red and white millets shown by Austria, Russia, and the United States, at the Great Exhibition, were beautiful, and Ceylon exhibited fair samples. Turkey abounds in small grains.

Panicum miliaceum and P. frumentaceum are the species grown in the East Indies. Loudon says there are three distinct species of millet; the Polish, the common or German, and the Indian. Setaria Germanica yields German millet. The plants are readily increased by division of the roots or by seed, and will grow in any common soil. The native West Indian species are P. fascisculatwm and oryzoides. Millet receives some attention in New South Wales. In 1844 there were 100 acres of land under cultivation with it, and the amount grown in some years in this colony has been about 3,500 bushels.

In the United States millet is chiefly grown for making hay, being found a good substitute for clover and the ordinary grasses. It is a plant which will flourish well on rather thin soils, and it grows so fast that when it is up and well set it is seldom much affected by drought. It is commonly sown there in June, but the time of sowing will vary with the latitude. Half a bushel of seed to the acre is the usual quantity, sown broadcast and harrowed in. For the finest quantity of hay, it is thought advisable to sow an additional quantity of three or four quarts of seed. The ordinary yield of crops may be put at from a ton to a ton and a half of hay to the acre. It should be cut as soon as it is out of blossom; if it stands later, the stems are liable to become too hard to make good hay. The variety known as German millet is that most common in North America. It grows ordinarily to the height of about three feet, with compact heads from six to nine inches in length, bearing yellow seed. There are some sub-varieties of this, as the white and purple-seeded.

The Italian millet, Setaria italica, is larger than the preceding, reaching the height of four feet in tolerable soil, and its leaves are correspondingly larger and thicker. The heads are sometimes a foot or more in length, and are less compact than the German, being composed of several spikes slightly branching from the main stem. It is said to derive its specific name from being cultivated in Italy, though its native habitat is India. It is claimed by some that this variety will yield more seed than any other, and the seed is rather larger, but the stalk is coarser, and would probably be less relished by stock.

If the greatest amount of seed is desired from the crop, it is best to sow it in drills, two to two-and-a-half feet apart, using a seed drill for the purpose. This admits of the use of a small harrow or cultivator between the rows, while the plants are small, which keeps out the weeds. The crop will ripen more uniformly in this way than broadcast, and enables the cultivator to cut it when there will be the least waste. The seed shatters out very easily when it is ripe, and when the crop ripens unequally it cannot be cut without loss, because either a portion of it will be immature, or, if left till it is all ripe, the seed of the earliest falls out. It should be closely watched, and cut in just about the same stage that it is proper to cut wheat, while the grain may be crushed between the fingers. It may be cut with a grain cradle, and, when dry, bound and shocked like grain; but it should be threshed out as soon as practicable, on account of its being usually much attacked by birds, many kinds of which are very fond of the seed. In particular localities they assail the crop in such numbers, from the time it is out of the "milk," till it is harvested and carried off the field, that it is no object to attempt to ripen it. This crop is sometimes sown in drills, when it is only intended for fodder, being cut and cured in bundles, as the stalks of Indian corn are. It is best to pass it through a cutting machine before feeding it to stock; indeed, all millet hay will be fed with less loss in this way, than if fed to animals without cutting.

The seed is used in various European countries as a substitute for sago, for which it is considered excellent. It is likewise a valuable food for poultry, particularly for young chickens, which from the smallness of the grain can eat it readily, and it appears to be wholesome for them.

In some countries millet seed is ground into flour and converted into bread; but this is brown and heavy. It is, however, useful in other respects, as a substitute for rice. A good vinegar has been made from it by fermentation, and, on distillation, it yields a strong spirit. Millet seed—the produce of H. saccharatum—is imported into this country from the East Indies for the purpose chiefly of puddings; by many persons it is preferred to rice. It is cultivated largely in China and Cochin-China. The stalks, if subjected to the same process that is adopted with the sugar-cane, yield a sweet juice, from which an excellent kind of sugar may be made.