252 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 



in many species, we feel confident that we must refer the origin 

 of our sorghums to the dark continent, 1 whence they spread first 

 to Egypt and afterward east, north, and west. 



Sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum). This remarkable sugar- 

 bearing plant is only remotely related to the Sorghums. It is 

 cultivated to-day in all the equatorial regions of the earth, for 

 its sugar is a universal favorite, though it is of but compara- 

 tively recent introduction. 



Its most ancient names are Sanskrit 2 (ikshu or ikshava). All 

 of its nearest related species grow wild in southeastern India, 

 the Malay Peninsula, and the outlying islands. Both these facts 

 indicate the origin to have been in Cochin China or thereabouts, 

 from which it spread first west with the India trade and after- 

 wards to China, where it appeared not much, if any, before the 

 time of Christ. 3 The Greeks and Romans had heard of it as 

 calamus. The Hebrews were unacquainted with sugar, and to 

 them honey and the honeycomb were symbols of sweetness. 

 The Arabs introduced it into Spain, and from thence it made 

 its way to the West India islands (St. Domingo, 1520, and 

 Guadeloupe, 1644) and soon after became rapidly abundant. 



Millet. This is a popular name for a great variety of useful 

 plants. First of all, it is often erroneously applied to the Asi- 

 atic cultivations of the various nonsaccharine sorghums already 

 mentioned. 



Again it is applied to the pearl or cat-tail millet (Pennisetum 

 typhoideuni), to the foxtail millet (Setaria italica, the Panicum 



1 The writer saw growing ffeely in Brazil what would be taken anywhere to 

 be a broom corn with an inferior brush. I had no means of tracing its habitat, 

 but from the fact that broom corn was not only not cultivated in the neighbor- 

 hood, but brooms themselves were unknown, it had every semblance of being 

 indigenous. Granting even that to be true, we could not look upon South 

 America as the original source of broom corn because it was known in Egypt 

 before the discovery of this country. 



2 " Origin of Cultivated Plants," p. 157. 



8 The older Chinese writings are said to make no mention of it, which is 

 significant, because the universal appetite for sweets made it a favorite at once 

 upon acquaintance. 



