AGRICULTURAL HISTORY AND DISTRIBUTION OF SORGHUM. 19 



These regions are (1) Egypt and (2) the Barbary States. The varie- 

 ties found in each are different, and also differ from those of equa- 

 torial Africa. 



EGYPT. 



In Egypt, durra is used as a general term to designate all succulent 

 forage. All sorghums are called durra beladi to distinguish them 

 from corn, durra shanii. The fall-sown sorghum is called nili and the 

 spring-sown, or common crop, sefi. The varieties with erect heads 

 are called aym, those with pendent heads awagi. There are three 

 sorghum varieties in common cultivation, all belonging to the spring- 

 sown crop with erect heads, or the durra beladi sefi aym. The three 

 are known as beda, or white seeded; safra, or yellow seeded; and 

 ahmar, or brown seeded. Beda is grown more extensively than all 

 the others combined. Where grown in this country all three are very 

 tall and very stout forms of the durra group, 10 to 14 or more feet 

 in height, with 20 to 30 leaves on each stalk. All possess larger seeds 

 and more closely compact heads than are found in any other varieties 

 of the durra group. They are of no apparent value for any part of 

 the United States. 



It is possible that safra, the yellow-seeded variety, was the founda- 

 tion stock for the milo of this country. They are very much alike 

 in both glume and seed characters, including the awns. These Egyp- 

 tian forms, while larger in the size of plant and seed, are rather 

 similar to some forms from Abyssinia and from India. The prob- 

 able relationships of these sorts are more fully discussed under the 

 heading " Botanical history." The groups of sorghum so common in 

 central and southeastern Africa are not found in Egypt, with the 

 exception of an occasional kafir in Upper Egypt, an evident stranger 

 from the South. 



BARBARY STATES. 



In Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, comprising the Barbary 

 States, the leading variety of sorghum is a white durra (fig. 6, b), 

 called bechna. or beshna. by the Kabyles of Algeria. It is practically 

 identical with that introduced into this country as Egyptian corn, 

 known later as rice corn, and more recently as Jerusalem corn. It 

 is probably not indigenous to North Africa. A very similar white 

 durra is found throughout Turkestan, Mesopotamia, Syria, and 

 Arabia, and the North African plant is probably a result of the Arab 

 invasion of that region in the third century. There is also found 

 sparingly among the mountain tribes, or Kabyles, of Algeria and in 

 certain oases in the northern Sahara a red-seeded durra very similar 

 to our brown durra and very likely the original form of it. This 

 form has not yet been found in Arabia or elsewhere in southwestern 



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