112 THE FORAGE AND FIBER CROPS IN AMERICA 



or for the purpose of supplementing the usual supply of hay 

 and forage. In 1900 rather less than 3 per cent, of the area 

 in hay and forage was devoted to the millets excluding 

 sorghum and kafir corn, which are grown for forage as well 

 as for sirup or seed. (C. A. 559) The millets are most 

 largely grown at present in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, 

 and the Dakotas, but would seem well adapted to the farm 

 economy of the southern states, both because of their climatic 

 adaptation and because the standard perennial forage plants 

 are less adapted to that section. 1 



118. Millets. The number of species known as millets is 

 very large and includes nearly all the grasses whose grain is 

 used for human food, with the exception of wheat, rye, oats, 

 barley, and rice even maize in some countries being sometimes 

 called millet. Excluding the sorghums, the millets cultivated 

 more or less commonly in America may be divided into four 

 groups: (i) foxtail or common millet, (2) broom corn millet, 

 (3) barnyard millet, and (4) pearl millet. 



Of these, foxtail millet is by far the most commonly culti- 

 vated. In fact, the other forms can scarcely be considered to 

 have entered into general cultivation. In this country millets 

 are grown almost exclusively for forage. Broom corn millet 

 is sometimes grown for its grain, and slight quantities of fox- 

 tail millet are used for bird seed. In Asia, however, millet 

 seed is a common article of diet, it being estimated that one- 

 third of the population of the globe use millet seed of 

 various kinds. 2 



119. Foxtail Millet (Chaetochloa italica (L.) Scribn.) is 

 divided into three types : Hungarian grass, common millet 



1 Some of the annual forage plants have been treated elsewhere in this 

 volume or in "The Cereals in America," and will not be considered in 

 this chapter. 



2 For species of millet grown in various parts of the world for seed or 

 forage, see Michigan Sta. Bui. No. 117 (1894), pp. 50-64. 



