Millet will grow best on light, dry soils. The ground being first well prepared, half a bushel of seed to the acre is ploughed in at the commencement of the rains, in India. The crop ripens within three months from the time of sowing. The usual produce is about 16 bushels to the acre. The Canary Islands export annually about 212,400 bushels of millet.
Great Indian Millet, or Guinea Corn.—This is a native of India (the Sorghum vulgare, the Andropogon Sorghum of Roxburgh), which produces a grain a little larger than mustard or millet seed. It is grown in most tropical countries, and has peculiar local names. In the West Indies, where it is chiefly raised for feeding poultry, it is called Guinea corn. In Egypt it is known as Dhurra, in Hindostan and Bengal as Joar, and in some districts as Cush.
In Lower Scinde joar is very extensively cultivated, as well as bajree (H. spicatus). It is harvested in December and January; requires a light soil, and is usually grown in the east, after Cynosurus corocanus.
Guinea corn is extensively cultivated in some parts of Jamaica. I did not, however, find it thrive on the north side of the island. It is best planted in the West Indies between September and November, and ripens in January. It ratoons or yields a second crop, when cut. The returns are from 30 to 60 bushels an acre, but the crops are uncertain.
Mr. C. Bravo tried Guinea corn at St. Ann's, Jamaica, as a green crop, sown broadcast, for fodder, and it answered admirably, the produce being very considerable. It was weighed, and yielded 14 tons of fodder per acre, and was found very palatable and nutritious for cattle. It was grown on a very poor soil, which had, previously to ploughing, given nothing but marigolds and weeds. The luxuriant growth of the corn completely kept under the weeds. A great number of the stalks were measured, and they averaged 10 feet from the root to the top of the upper leaf. It had been planted 10 weeks, and had, therefore, grown a foot a month. Mr. Bravo is of opinion, that sown broadcast it would answer either as a grain crop, as fodder, or ploughed in to increase the fertility of the soil.
Dr. Phillips, of Barbados, being of opinion that it might be advantageously employed as human food, requested Dr. Shier, the analytical chemist, of Demerara, to determine in his laboratory its richness in protein compounds (the muscle-forming part of vegetable food) in comparison with Indian corn. He, therefore, caused a sample of each to be burned for nitrogen, when the following results were obtained:—
| Indian corn. | Guinea corn. | |
| Water, per cent. | 12.81 | 13.76 |
| In ordinary state— | ||
| Nitrogen, per cent. | 1.83 | 1.18 |
| Protein compounds | 11.51 | 7.42 |
| In dry state— | ||
| Nitrogen, per cent. | 2.10 | 1.36 |
| Protein compounds | 13.20 | 8.60 |
According to these results, the Guinea corn is less rich in nitrogen or protein compounds than Indian corn, though not much less so than some varieties of English wheat.
Indian corn meal, analysed by Mr. Hereford, from two localities, gave in the ordinary state of dryness 11.53 and 12.48 per cent. of protein compounds—results which come very near to that obtained by Dr. Shier.
Sorghum avenaceum, or Holcus avenaceus, is a native of the Cape.