12 



HISTORY AND DISTRIBUTION OF SORGHUM. 



means adequately known, but it seems likely that they will easily out- 

 number the combined total from all other parts of the world. Most 

 of them belong apparently to groups which are found sparingly or 

 not at all elsewhere. Such a profusion of forms of a cultivated 

 plant among primitive peoples must have required many centuries 

 for derivation and development. Not only the names, but the actual 

 varieties also are often quite different in separate, though adjacent, 



Fig. 2. — Map of Africa. (Scale 1,200 miles to the inch.) 



tribes. The women of a tribe, who are commonly its laborers, often 

 become quite expert in distinguishing closely related varieties — a 

 knowledge to which the men seldom attain. Their methods of culti- 

 vation are necessarily crude, but through the accumulated wisdom of 

 many centuries of cultivators they have amassed a great deal of 

 accurate information about the handling of the crop. How it re- 

 sponds on different soils and in different seasons, the proper dis- 



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