54 SORGHUM. 



202. The appearance of the grain is- cap-like, growing in even rows, corn 

 high, and beautiful to look at, in all of the North China provinces. 



I have not seen it, except to a limited extent, in the provinces watered by the 

 great river (Yang Tse). 



Dr. Williams' Report, p. 57, is a very accurate one, and I can add nothing 

 thereto. " Pao Liang," which is also understood in China as a millet produc- 

 tion, is a spirituous liquor much used by the Chinese, north, south, east, and 

 west. I have tasted it, but, like all the Chinese distillations, in failing to purify 

 from " must," is objectionable. Other grains are also distilled in China ; but 

 none, I think, to the same extent as the millet plant. 



BOTANY OF SORGHUM. 



lu the Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture, 1865, p. 

 299, F. Pech has collected many historical and botanical references to 

 sorghum, which have been verified by reference to the several author- 

 ities, and are here appended. Pliny the elder, who lived in the first 

 century, in his Natural History, Lib. XVIII, ch. 10, says : 



Milium intra hos decern annos ex India in Italiam invectum est, nigrum 

 color, amplium grano, arundineum culmo. Adolerat ad pedes altitudine sep- 

 tem, praegrandibus culmis lobas vocant, omnium frugum fertilissimum. Ex 

 uno grano sextarii terni gignuntur. Seri debet in huraidas. — Within the past 

 six years, a millet has been imported into Italy from India, of a black color, 

 abounding in seed, and with a reed-like stalk. It attains a height of seven feet, 

 and has very large stalks, which they call lobas ; and of all grain it is the most 

 fruitful. From a single kernel, about three pints of seed is produced. It should 

 be planted in moist ground. 



And a note appended to the above, by Scaliger Exercit, 292, p. 869, 

 says : 



Hoc sorghum vocari apud nos populares. — This plant is called sorghum 

 among our people. 



The name milium, or millet, means tlwusands, referring to its numer- 

 ous seeds, and is, of course, a? applicable to sorghum as to millet, and 

 was, probably, applied originally to all plants of this general character. 



Pliny, 32nd chap. , Book VI, speaking of Insulae Fortunae (Canary 

 Islands), asserts, on authority of Juba : 



Arbores similes ferulae, ex quibus aqua ex premitur, ex nigra amare, ex can- 

 didioribus jucunda. — Trees similar to the giant fermel, from which juice is ex- 

 pressed, which from the black variety is bitter, and from the whiter variety is 

 sweet. 



Since sugar-cane is not reported as having been introduced upon 

 these islands earlier than 1420, it would appear that the above refer- 

 ence of Juba must have been to the sorghum. 



FuchiuS, of Belgium, describes, in his History of Plants, in 1542, 



