THREE MUCH-MISKEPRESENTED SORGHUMS. 11 



(2) Tlie plant once known juul used under that name was some one 

 of the many varieties of sorghum. 



(3) From the brief descriptions given by different writers it is cer- 

 tain tliat the variety w^as very simihir to the Early Amber sorgo « of 

 to-day. 



The writer of the letter quoted does not say under what name the 

 seed was sent to his father. He does state, however, that he never 

 heardit called "chocolate corn. " So far as recorded, the only sorghum 

 seed distributed by the United States Patent Office during President 

 Buchanan's administration was that of the Chinese sorgo. This was 

 sent to a very few selected persons in 1855, and 175 bushels of mostly 

 home-grown seed were distributed in 1857. It was undoubtedly this 

 Chinese sorgo wdiich the correspondent recalls. The description 

 quoted talhes very well, as far as it goes, with the Chinese sorgo. 

 It was very similar to our Early Amber sorgo. In fact, the Amber 

 sorgo varieties are supposed by many to have been derived by selection 

 from the Chinese sorgo. 



It is interesting to know, however, that a sorghum variety called 

 "chocolate corn," and used as a beverage, was knowTi at a much 

 earlier date. The following quotation from a paper '' on Sorghum 

 saccTiaratum, or Chinese sorgo, written in 1857, is sufficient to indicate 

 the use of such a variety about 1830: 



It is by some supposed to have been cultivated to a limited extent in western 

 Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and perhaps in other localities, twenty-five or thirty 

 years since, for the seed or grain, which was then used, in some instances, as an 

 article of food by farmers who experimented in its cultivation. There were at 

 the time mentioned two varieties cultivated, one having black panicles under the 

 name "chocolate,''' and the other, having white panicles, was called "rice." The 

 "chocolate" or black variety was prepared for use by browning the seeds, still con- 

 tained in the panicles, in the manner of coffee, and then making a coffee, which, with 

 the addition of cream and sugar, resembled chocolate in appearance and somewhat 

 also in taste, and was quite palatable. 



Since the Cliinese sorgo was not known to Europe until 1851, and 

 to this countrv until 1853, it could not have been the "chocolate 

 corn" of 1830. But a black-panicled variety was introduced to 

 Europe in the first century A. D., and was known to many European 

 herbaUsts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was gro\\-ii 

 and described in Italy by Arduino in 1786. That it was imported to 

 the United States is the natural conclusion. Johnson grass was 

 brought from the Mediterranean region about 1830. 



Most descriptions refer to this sorghum and to the Cliinese sorgo 

 as havinij black seeds. No sorghums having black seeds are known. 



a Sorgo is the name adopted for the sweet or saccharine group of sorghums, often 

 erroneously called "sugar cane. " 



ft John H. Klippart, corresponding secretary, Ohio State Board of Agriculture. 

 Report, 1857, p. 409. 

 [Cir. 50] 



