386 THE CEREALS IN AMERICA 



requires a full and favorable season for maturing, and is often damaged by frost on 

 this account. Tlie yellow milo maize, or * Brown Dhura,' does not require so long 

 a season, and is a heavy yielder of grain, the head hanging down on a short goose- 

 neck, when ripe. The crooked heads, which hook and cling to everything they 

 touch, are a great hindrance in handling. The seed also shells badly when ripe. 

 Rice-corn and Jerusalem com are very similar in their growth, the heads of both 

 hanging down, ard annoying in the same way as those of the yellow milo maize. 

 The seed of Jerusalem corn, being slightly flattened when ripe, can be distinguished 

 from that of the rice-corn, which is round and also lighter in color. The two will 

 mature in a short season and produce from twenty-five lo fifty bushels of seed. 

 They are adapted to the higher, cooler and drier counties of the western part of the 

 state. They are very productive of seed, but the fodder yield is very light. In the 

 eastern part of the state the English sparrow is a great pest where grain is raised. 

 The seed is somewhat sweeter than the Kafir-corn grain, which they bother very 

 Uttle.»l 



Broom corn is divided into two types : the standard and the 

 dwarf. Standard broom corn grows from ten to fifteen feet 

 high, bearing a panicle of brush from eighteen to twenty-eight 

 inches long ; while the dwarf grows from four to six feet high 

 and bears a brush of finer quality from ten to eighteen inches 

 long, with occasionally strains that produce brush as long as two 

 feet. The product of the dwarf variety is used for making 

 whisk brooms and other brooms of small size ; while that of the 

 standard sort is used for making ordinary carpet brooms. The 

 dwarf varieties have a larger amount of foliage, are better 

 adapted to stand drouth, and for cultivation on sandy soils. 

 Kafir varieties usually grow from four to seven feet in height ; 

 while sweet sorghum varieties usually range from eight to ten 

 feet in height 



542. Improvement of Varieties. — The wide variations in the 



cultivated forms of sorghum suggest that the varieties might be 

 easily improved or modified by selection, provided they are kept 

 from crossing. Hartley has shown that broom corn and sor- 

 ghum will readily cross and produce intermediate forms when 

 grown in adjacent fields.* The different forms may become 



1 Rpt Kan. St. Bd. of Agr., March, 1900 p 64. 

 • O. S. DepL of Agr., Farmers* Bui. 174, p. 12. 



