304 



FARMERS' REGISTER— BUCKWHEAT AND MILLET. 



plentilul supplies of manure, as the species of 

 millet usually <rrown in this and the adjacejit coun- 

 ties. I have sown it from the Isit May to the 20ih 

 of June, and have invariablj' obtained more fod- 

 der than could have been liad (i-om any o-rass un- 

 der similar circumstances. In the autumn, cin'hty 

 bushels of caustic lime per acre were strewed upon 

 an old sward, which was immediately p-loughed, 

 closely harrowed, sown v/ith rye, and rolled. The 

 rye was depastured in the winter and succeeding 

 spring. Early in April the land was ploughed 

 again; the lime and decomposed vegetable matter 

 were thus returned to the surface. About three 

 weeks after, it was harrowed to destroy weeds: 

 early in May it was again harrowed for the same 

 purpose: within a fortnight it was stirred with 

 Beatson's scarifier to the depth of nine inches, 

 harrowed, sown with millet and rolled. 'J'he crop 

 ■was fairly estimated at three tons per acre." "On 

 the 5th of May, five bushels of millet seed Avere 

 sown on four acres: on the 5th of July the crop 

 was hauled, and estimated at four tons per acre. 

 I have obtained this season forty tons from six- 

 teen acres, of which four only had been manured; 

 the residue could not have borne a good ci'op of 

 wheat."— pp. 198-9. 



VVm. J. Miller, lb. p. 201, says, "I sowed it 

 (Egyptian millet) in drills on a loose sandy loam, 

 on the 21st of May, too late by a month I should 

 supi^ose. It grew rapidly, producing many stalks 

 from one seed, and on the 24ih of July it was 

 three feet high and fti'l of long blades. It contin- 

 ued growing rapidly and luxuriantly, and I fully 

 expected to have obtained abundance of seed, as 

 the heads appeared to be filling, and were fi'om 

 twelve to eighteen inches long, when on the 28th 

 of September a severe frost checked it, and nipt it 

 completely when in blossom. It was then from 

 ten to twelve ff^et high, tiull of long leaves, and 

 promising the largest croj) of any "description I 

 ever saw." 



John Elliott, lb. p. 208, says, "I am of opinion 

 that la,nd in common condition, will produce twen- 

 ty bushels per acre of good seeds, and two tons 

 oY hay." 



From reading such highly commendatory ac- 

 counts as the foregoing, many of us really im- 

 agined that this millet possessed almost as manj^ 

 excellencies as old Will Boniface ascribed to his 

 ale. All however in this neighborhood who tried 

 it, agreed that "it was'nt the thing it had been 

 cracked up to be." As material for hay, com- 

 pared with red clover, I should give a decided 

 preference to the clover. If milfet will yield a 

 greater quantity, (which can only be the case on 

 very rich land) the su[)erior quality of the clover 

 hay will more than compensate for any deficienc}' 

 in quantity — and the one exhausts, while the other 

 fertilizes the soil. Compared with timothy, (both 

 exhausters) I should give to timothy the prefer- 

 ence. The latter yields as much hay — is of better 

 quality — affords a good fidl pasture after the hay 

 has been made, and will last ibv several years; 

 while the millet has to be annually sown, and re- 

 quires great labor and care to be bestoAved on the 

 preparation of the ground, and of the two is much 

 the greater exhauster. But I may possibly de- 

 preciate millet (may be "I feel anmiihilion against 

 It") because I fluled with it. When it was first 

 introduced into notice in the Valley, seeing its 

 praises so eloquently set forth in several publica- 



tions, and hearing too some very extravagant oral 

 accounts of it, I procured ten bushels of the seed 

 at the cosi of twenty dollars, and with the trouble 

 of sending some distance for it. Having no suita- 

 ble lot for it, I had several acres m a field of rich 

 river low ground, lately laid down in red clover, 

 broken up, and carefully jiropared. Here I sowed 

 the millet, (about the middle of May:) it was 

 somewhat slow in starting to grow^, and the crab 

 or crop grass sprung up with it, and materially 

 injured it, and I doubt whether 1 had nuich more 

 millet hay than I should have had of clover. Upon 

 this rich alluvial soil, I had calculated upon an im- 

 mense crop — judge then of my disappointment and 

 mortification, when I found the millet struggling 

 lor mastery with crab grass, and when finally it 

 did rise above that, and some of it attained the 

 height of four or five feet, to be laughed at for my 

 credulity, and told in ridicule that "it was nothing 

 but a kind of big fox tail." My father who re- 

 ceived those magnificent accounts of the produc- 

 tiveness and excellence of millet "cum grano salis," 

 thought it wiser to experiment upon a smaller 

 scale and confined his trial of it, to a single acre 

 of very highly improved land that had been pre- 

 pared for hemp. He succeeded much better than 

 I did, although I do not think that his millet was 

 half as high as his hemp in the same lot. How- 

 ever well millet may do elsev/here, I think that 

 the disappointment in the central counties of the 

 Valley was universal. Here where the climate 

 and soil are so admirably adapted to the growth 

 of clover, timothy, and green sward, there Vv^as no 

 adequate inducement to bestow so much pains on 

 the cultivation of a grass so much more precari- 

 ous, and of such inferior value. 



The object of his inquiries H states, is to ascer- 

 tain what cheap grain is most suitable to sow on 

 poor, light, sandy land in Lower Virginia. As- 

 suredly then millet will not answer his purpose. 

 Has rye ever been tried for that purpose in that 

 section of the State? In the Valley it grows well 

 on poor, sandy land, and 1 have known one gen- 

 tleman who used it as a meliorating crop, and 

 much to his satisfaction. His lands however were 

 not poor. His practice was to sow rye early in 

 the fall — depasture it in the winter and spring un- 

 til about the middle of April: when the rye had 

 attained the milk state, he turned his stock of 

 hogs into it. The hogs soon became very fat, and 

 he thought the additional quantity of pork thus 

 obtained more than compensated for the whole 

 trouble and expense of preparing the land and 

 sowing the rye, while his land was much benefit- 

 ed by the straw. Enough of the rye would ripen 

 and be shattered out, again to seed the land and a 

 good crop, the second year be obtained. If the 

 climate be favorable to the growth of rye, I should 

 think it would be preferable as a meliorating crop 

 to buckwheat, because rye is not near so great an 

 impoverisher as buckwheat, and its straw'is much 

 more valuable as manure: and also where the land 

 is in a tolerably good condition, the winter pas- 

 ture which the Aotmg rye afibrds is of considera- 

 ble value. 



Would not an experiment of this kind probably 

 succeed? A crop of buckwheat sovyn in the spring; 

 ploughed down in the fall; the ground sovv'n with 

 rye; on that clover seed sown; and the sowing of 

 the clover seed followed by the peg roller — the 

 j'oung buckwheat receive a dressing of plaster of 



