80 THE TILLERING OF SORGHUM. 
is not permitted the natural period of rest after germina- 
tion that the wants of the plant seem to require. There 
is no marked cessation of growth in the blade after it has 
appeared above ground; it tillers very little, and requires 
to be more thickly sown than winter wheat. The inferior 
quality of the grain of such wheat is generally well known; 
the plant is less vigorous; it is not capable of enduring 
such vicissitudes as the cold-hardened winter wheat; is 
more subject to disease and to some insects, and unless 
very thickly sown, is peculiarly liable to injury from 
drought in summer. If we should not desire to perpet- 
uate our stock of wheat from this inferior and unhealthy 
sort, is it wise to subject to such an ordeal a plant exhibit- 
ing the same characteristics under similar circumstances, 
and to expect that, year by year, it will not degenerate? 
With the exception that the half dormant period in 
sorghum is not.so extended as in wheat, and that it has 
not sufficient hardihood to endure the cold of winter, the 
analogy is perfect. In point of hardihood it seems to 
occupy a middle place between our spring-sown grains and 
those sown in the fall. 
There are some varieties of imphee it is said which do 
not tiller. If, like that of Indian-corn, this is found to be 
their natural mode of growth, it would be unwise to at- 
tempt to interfere with it; but if it is the result of the 
“eramping” system, as sometimes pursued with the Chinese 
variety, we may readily account for the feebleness of growth 
and light yield of many varieties of the African cane. 
My own observation leads me to believe that the tiller- 
ing process is natural to all varieties of sorghum. ~All the 
common kinds of imphee grown from seed sown in early 
spring, in the latitude of Pittsburg, were found to conform 
to it, although the tendency to multiplication in this way 
seems, in the case of the Chinese cane, to be peculiarly 
strong. 
