68 (THE CHINESE SUGAR CANE. 
THE YOTE OF THE JURY OF ANIMALS. 
Animal instinct is, after all, the best test of the com- 
parative value of different substances for forage; and, 
taking this view of the case, we can establish beyond 
cavil the fact that sorgho seed is good feed for poultry 
and birds of all descriptions. Sundry of the French 
experimenters lament their inability to protect their 
sowings of seed from the voracious attacks of sparrows; 
and in one of our southern states the entire crop of seed, 
on a small plot in a gentleman’s garden, was made way 
with by his chickens and pigeons. 
THE COLORING MATTERS IN THE SEED. 
The coloring matter in the hulls is so easily separated, 
and carried with the fluids of the animal body, that the 
flesh, and even the minute cellular structure of the bones 
of poultry, fed upon sorgho seed, becomes actually dyed 
purple. Mr. Wray says, he has seen in Count Beaure- 
gard’s poultry-yard, the droppings of chickens fed on 
the seeds, that could at once be distinguished, by their 
purplish hue, from those of the other inmates of the yard. 
I have been shown, by that gentleman, a piece of 
pigeon’s dung that had, by accident, been packed in a 
case of his sorgho seed-heads, and been received in this 
country, direct, from Hyéres, which was as purple as a 
mulberry stain. Of course it will be understood, that 
this coloring matter is entirely without taste, and no 
injury is done to the fowl. In fact, it may become a 
fashionable thing to pay extra for purple broiled chicken. 
