38 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



being worked are many miserable huts for the labourers, and 

 vagabond Peruvians, with merchandise from Pisco. The 

 governor is a Peruvian colonel, who has 100 soldiers under 

 his command, to keep the Chinese slaves and the Peruvian 

 labourers in order. There are about 800 Chinese, who were 

 broui^ht over from China in English ships, chartered by the 

 Peruvian government to bring Chinese emigrants to California, 

 but which were to call at Pisco for orders ; and when the ships 

 arrived at Pisco, the poor Chinese were lauded, aud made vir- 

 tually slaves; but, as they each get two dollars per month, 

 thej- receive a wage. 



"Ships anchor close tj the islands, in deep water, from 

 twenty to fifty fathoms. I anchored in forty, about half a 

 mile from the shore, Beef Rnd vegetables ore brouzht from 



Pisco. The price of meat, which is very inferior, is 7d. per 

 pound. Ships bring water with them from Callao, and are 

 bound by charter-party to land a certain quantity on the 

 islands, by which means they are supplied with water. The 

 ships are loaded either by boats or under a shoot, were the 

 ship is moored close to the rocks, aud the guano run down 

 from a height of 110 feet. I loaded by the latter, and took 

 in 1,300 tons in four days. The place abounds in fish, but 

 not of a very first-rate quality, being principally albecore, 

 horse mackerel, and a sort of mullet. At certain seasona 

 flying-fish are very abundant. The islands are the property 

 of the Peruvian government, who commissiod Messrs, Gibba 

 to charter ships aud sell the guano. — J. Bulford." 

 '^From the Cottage Gardener. 



THE TRADE IN MILLET 



What is Millet ? Doubtless every reader will think 

 he can very nadily reply to this simple question; but we 

 fancy that, like the definition of corn, it will vary consi- 

 derably with the locality and the extent of the know- 

 ledge of the person answering. What is corn in Eng- 

 land is not corn in the United States; for while we ap- 

 ply the term to wheat, the Americans restrict it to 

 maize. In Scotland the name is given to oats, and still 

 farther north, in Sweden, barley is the breadcorn of the 

 country. 



So with the term Millet, the M'ord has a widely ex- 

 tended signification, and embraces the edible seeds of 

 grasses of various families very dissimilar in habit and 

 appearance. 



What is generally known as Millet in popular par- 

 lance in England, is the seed, chiefly yellow, of the 

 Panicum miliaceum, sold in seed shops for feeding 

 small birds. But the terra takes in a much wider 

 range of product, as we have already stated ; and al- 

 though the culture of the millets is little attended to 

 in England, yet in many countries they form large and 

 imporlant staple food-crops, and considerable quanti- 

 ties are imported here in some years. Thus it' we trace 

 back a few years, we find the imports have been respec- 

 tively in — 



1853 1.38,159 cwts. 



1854 16,470 „ 



1855 58,26.3 ,, 



1856 41,284 „ 



For 1857 we have no returns yet. 



The consideration of the millets is not without in- 

 terest, therefore, both in a commercial and an agricultu- 

 ral point of view ; and since there is little accessible in- 

 formation on these plants, we propose to say a few 

 words on their peculiarities and uses, and shall endeavour 

 to reconcile some discrepancies which are very apt to 

 lead those astray who have not looked closely into the 

 subject. 



The question propounded at the head of this article 

 is one that occurred to us, as it may very probably do to 

 others, who, in passing through the Pood Department 

 of the South Kensington Museum, linger over the in- 

 teresting case of millets, in the ear and in the grain, 



contributed by Mr. P. L. Simmonds, a gentleman who 

 has devoted much study and attention to the dift'usion 

 of sound information connected with commercial and 

 agricultural products. 



If we turn to an ordinary dictionary, we shall find 

 " Millet — the name of a plant;" and Simmonds' recent 

 ''Dictionary of Trade Products" tells us that " millet is 

 a common name for several species of small seed corn> 

 which on the Mediterranean coasts are generally 

 called dhurra, in the West Indies guinea corn, &c.'' 

 But we want something more precise than this ; and 

 although we cannot branch out here into an abstract de- 

 finition as to what is millet and what is not, and where 

 the line of demarcation of these small-seeded gi-ains is 

 to be drawn, we can at least look at the matter in a 

 popular and useful point of view, and show what are 

 the millets popularly so termed, cultivated in different 

 countries, and what are their local and generic names. 



Firstly, then, we have the common or small millet (the 

 Panicum miliaceum), that which is chiefly cultivated 

 in Europe, with smooth shining, ovate, yellow seeds, 

 but of which there are three other varieties, with grey, 

 white, or black seeds. Closely allied to these are the 

 Setarias, the Italian millet (Setaria italica), with seeds 

 tinged with green, and the German millet. (S. ger- 

 manica), having seeds of a dark grey colour, the^ latter 

 being much grown in Hungary, for horse forage, as 

 green food. And there are two other varieties of this 

 millet — a red-seeded, and a small whitish seeded. 



Next we have the Polish millet (the Digitaria san- 

 guinalis), esteemed for its seeds, which in various parts 

 of Europe, where it abounds, are boiled with milk, and 

 oaten like rice. 



In Austria millet is cultivated chiefly in Moravia, 

 South Hungary, and Lombardy. It is also grown 

 to some extent in parts of France, but almost exclu- 

 sively for forage. Our imports of millet in 1856 were 

 derived as follows : —15,000 cwts. from Wallachia and 

 Moldavia, 1,330 cwt. from Austrian Italy, aud 25,000 

 cwt. from Turkey, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, 



Passing now to Africa, wo find millet — but a much 

 larger and more prolific grain — enters generally into 

 cultivation. The millets chiefly grown in the African 



