72 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Sorghum is a comparatively new crop in the state, and yet it is 

 meeting with favor in many quarters. Even where corn fodder is well 

 cared for there are those who grow sorghum for the purpose of adding 

 variety to their roughage. There are few crops that will give a greater 

 yield of fodder per acre than sorghum, while there is no crop that is 

 more palatable. Sorghum is a gross feeder and for the best results 

 should be grown on land that is fairly rich. A clover meadow plowed 

 in the fall or spring will make a splendid seed bed for this crop. It is 

 a southern plant and should never be seeded until the soil has become 

 warm. It should not be sown before the twentieth of May, and even 

 this date is early when the season is cold and backward. If sown when 

 the soil is cold the seed may germinate but the plants take on a yellow 

 -appearance and growth becomes stunted. Few crops require more care- 

 ful preparation of the seed bed. If, for example, a clover sod is plowed 

 in the spring it should afterwards be well worked down with disc and 

 harrow, and so much the better if the roller can be pressed into ser- 

 vice. This makes a firm, fine seed bed and consequently presents ideal 

 conditions for covering the seed uniformly. 



There are a number of methods of planting the seed. Where a 

 grain drill is not available at least two bushels of seed should be used 

 per acre. Unless the soil is more than ordinarily wet the seed should 

 be covered with a disk, when it is sown broadcast, the harrow not being 

 sufficient to insure a perfect covering. Where a drill is available one 

 of two methods may be employed in the manner of sowing the seed. 

 Some prefer to sow from eighty to 120 pounds per acre. In other in- 

 stances a number of spouts in the drill are stopped up leaving the rows 

 thirty to forty inches apart. In this case the feed is thrown wide open 

 so that the seed is sown very thickly in the row. Even when this is 

 done, however, only a small quantity of seed is required, six or eight 

 quarts being enough for one acre. When sorghum is sown in this man- 

 ner it is usually cut with the binder, so that the expense of harvesting 

 is much less than where it is sown thickly, necessitating harvesting with 

 the mower. On poor land, even where the crop is sown thickly, it is 

 sometimes possible to harvest with the ordinary binder, but as a rule 

 on our richer soils the fodder grows so rank as to render this method 

 impracticable. 



As to the manner of curing sorghum, there is considerable differ- 

 ence in the methods employed by those who grow this crop. When it 

 can be handled with a corn binder or even an ordinary binder it may 

 be shocked up immediately and left to cure out in the shock. Where 

 the crop is so heavy that it must be cut with the mower it is generally 

 advisable to allow the fodder to dry out for a few days previous to shock- 

 ing. I am well aware of the fact that a great many persons shock it up 

 at once in the green condition, but the objection to this practice is that 

 it makes the handling of the sorghum somewhat expensive owing to the 

 great weight, of the green sorghum. A twenty-five ton crop of green fodder 

 will be reduced in weight to seven or eight tons in the course of ten 

 days, providing the weather is favorable. Drying may be hastened by 



