62 SORGHUM, 



much greater capacity for variation than others, and Sorghum vulgare stands 

 pre-eminent among the useful plants for this character. 



The usefulness of any agricultural species is intimately correlated with its 

 capacity for variation in cultivation, for this means capacity for the improve- 

 ment of varieties by the only means known to cultivators by which such im- 

 provements may be effected. It also means capacity for adaptation to varied 

 conditions of soil, climate, and natural surroundings, and, furthermore, adap- 

 tation to various methods of culture, and to various uses. It is a sort of plas- 

 ticity which allows the species to be molded in the hands of the intelligent 

 cultivator. 



This species (Sorghum vulgare) has varied more widely under cultivation 

 than any other cereal, unless it be Indian corn. The varieties differ in all their 

 characters — in height, fruitfulness, habit of growth, grain, stalk, leaf, panicle, 

 chemical composition, preference of soil, climate, and exposure; and so on, to 

 all the differences in which species themselves differ. Its cultivation has ex- 

 tended to most of the warm, and many of the temperate, climates of the globe, 

 and it has adapted itself to the varied uses and more varied agricultural 

 methods of nearly all the civilized races of mankind. 



The agricultural success of any plant in a country depends, in part, upon its 

 fitness to the soil and climate, and in part to a variety of other conditions, one 

 of which is, that it must fill some place in the agriculture of that country better 

 than the other species competing with it. Sentiment and local customs are 

 also factors, but which have less force in this country than in others. 



Durra, Guinea corn, broom corn, and, probably, also chocolate corn, were in- 

 troduced into this country in colonial times. During the days of more imper- 

 fect tools and machinerj', and of difficult transportation, all our agricultural 

 crops were, of necessity, grown upon a much smaller scale than now ; and, on 

 most farms, a greater variety of crops were grown than now. Most, if not all, 

 the agricultural plants of the Old World were tried here, and many had a wide 

 and sparse cultivation until well into the present century, and then disappeared 

 under the new conditions of our agriculture. The cultivation of others became 

 specialized. Varieties of this species may be found in both these categories. 

 Durra and Guinea corn were both widely introduced, and they lingered in cul- 

 tivation until crowded out by Indian corn. They were dropped just as many 

 other minor crops were : they did not fill a place in our modern agriculture so 

 well as some other species did, and now are only found in regions where Indian 

 -corn does not grow so well, particularly in the states which border on Mexico. 

 Chocolate corn (the old S. bicolor) was cultivated here and there as a poor sub- 

 stitute for coffee ; but, under the changed conditions of things, it has entirely 

 disappeared from our fields and gardens, crowded out by imported and better 

 coffee. Broom corn, also introduced in colonial times, was widely cultivated: 

 forty years ago, very many persons grew enough for their own use or for local 

 sale. It supplied a certain want better than any thing else, consequently, it 

 could not be crowded out; but, under the conditions of modern agriculture, its 

 cultivation has become specialized an 1 concentrated in fewer localities, in some 

 of which it has assumed an importance found nowhere else in the world. It has 

 been greatly improved, and the cultivation of American varieties has now ex- 

 tended to the Old World. 



About thirty years ago, the sugar yielding sorghum was introduced. Filling. 



