The Millets 643 



showed that cutting it before the seed has formed will not prevent 

 injury. This injurious effect is noted first as producing an 

 increased action of the kidneys ; secondly, in causing lameness 

 and swelling of the joints; thirdly, in producing infusion of blood 

 into the joints; and, fourthly, in destroying the texture of the 

 bone, rendering it softer and less tenacious so that the ligaments 

 are often torn loose from the bone and the bones themselves break 

 easily. These results were verified by a post-mortem examination 

 of two horses that had been fed millet as their sole roughage, and 

 can scarcely be subject to doubt, even though many newspaper 

 articles deny that there is any danger in feeding millet hay to 

 horses. When fed sparingly in connection with other kinds of 

 hay, there is little danger of injury and it can be used in this way 

 with good effect to augment a roughage ration for horses. 



USE AS A GRAIN CROP 



Foxtail millet has never been utilized to any great extent as a 

 grain crop in the United States ; and so long as corn and the small 

 grains can be produced successfully in New York there will be 

 little of the proso, or broom-corn millet, grown in the state, and 

 almost none of the foxtail millet that is grown there will be har- 

 vested for grain purposes. In hog-feeding experiments, the South 

 Dakota Experiment Station found that it required about 8 per 

 cent more proso than it did barley to produce a pound of gain, 

 and from this basis it would be about 16 per cent less efficient than 

 corn as a hog feed. For feeding steers it required 37 per cent 

 more millet than com to produce a pound of gain, 29 per cent more 

 than oats, and 22 per cent more than spelt. Other trials indicated 

 that the seed of the foxtail millets was practically equal to that of 

 proso in value when both were crushed before feeding. The seed 

 of millet should always be crushed before feeding to animals other 

 than poultry or birds, otherwise much of it passes through undi- 

 gested. 



Large quantities of millet seed are used as chicken feed and 

 in prepared bird-feeds. Both foxtail and proso can be used very 

 effectively in this way without grinding. An analysis of one pre- 

 pared bird seed showed about 50 per cent to be com m on millet 

 seed, which was the cheapest of all the constituents. 



