AGRICULTURAL HISTORY AND DISTRIBUTION OF SORGHUM. 21 



The land tax levied by the Turkish Government is paid by the na- 

 tives in the seed of this white durra. The people are required by the 

 officials to present in such payments cleaned and selected seed, much 

 better than the average found on the market or used in their homes 

 for food. Xo other sorghums are found in all this great region except 

 occasionally a little Amber sorgo introduced from Europe or America. 



India. 



In the number of varieties of sorghum and the relative importance 

 of the crop, India ranks second only to tropical Africa. The total 

 area grown in India and Burma is now about 25,000.000 acres an- 

 nually. Though cultivated for many centuries and forming a staple 

 and very important article of human food and of export, Indian 

 varieties have apparently not been selected or improved for grain 

 production. The average grain yield obtained there would be con- 

 sidered very small in this country. According to the best statistics 

 obtainable by the British Government and published recently. 10 

 bushels to the acre would seem to be a fair average for the grain yield 

 of sorghum in India. Methods of cultivation are crude, and losses 

 by drought, fungi, insects, and birds are considerable. It does not 

 appear that the soil is especially poor, in spite of centuries of culti- 

 vation. This may be largely due to an abundant use of legumes, both 

 as staple crops and as fillers or subordinate crops. 



As noted, the number of varieties is very large. They vary in the 

 different native states, and the names applied to them are much more 

 numerous and variable than the forms themselves. Many of the 

 varieties would be classed as durras. though none is identical with 

 any of our cultivated durras. In color the seed of most of them is 

 white or pearly yellowish, but in a few it is red. The heads, and the 

 seeds as well, average quite small, though the plants themselves are 

 usually both tall and stout (fig. 7). This is probably explained by 

 the fact that in India the plants are always grown for both fodder 

 and human food. Owing to their large size they are inclined to be 

 rather late in maturing. A few varieties are dwarf in height, but 

 these also have stout stems and mature with us scarcely earlier than 

 the others. Rather compact heads and firm glumes are character- 

 istic. One or two very large varieties are two seeded ; that is. they 

 have two fertile flowers and produce two seeds in each spikelet, in- 

 stead of one, as is normal for the sorghums. 



From more than 300 different lots of Indian origin, which have 

 been studied bv the writer, only one or two have seemed worthy of 

 attempts at improvement. The small size and hard nature of the 

 seeds would necessitate grinding to make them profitably available 

 as stock food. To eliminate the large size of the stalk and bring 

 the grain yield up to a profitable quantity would require several years 

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