SOME MINOR Cuoi's 191 



some low lying land which is very fertile and which cannot be worked early, 

 and is not suitable for leguminous crops, you may grow millet with some 

 profit. The finest crops we ever saw were on the dyked marshes along the 

 Delaware Kiver near Wilmington, Del. It is only on such lands that we 

 would grow these non-leguminous forage plants. On land that would require 

 fertilization to grow a good crop of millet it would be better to let the millet 

 alone and grow something better adapted to the soil and capable of making 

 better feed. The main fertilizer requirement of the millets is nitrogen, 

 which, as we have seen, is the most costly of the ingredients in a fertilizer, 

 and which the legumes can get for themselves. 



TEOSINTE. 



This is a plant closely allied to our Indian corn, but which requires a 

 longer season to mature seed than it can get in the larger part of the United 

 States. It is said to mature seed in Southern Florida, but even for this we 

 cannot vouch. As a soiling crop teosinte will give a large yield of green 

 stuff, about as valuable for feeding as immature corn stalks, and so far as we 

 have observed, not so good in feeding quality as the corn because of its im- 

 maturity. Those who look at bulk rather than quality will usually be pleased 

 with teosinte. It can be cut several times during the summer on rich and 

 moist land, and like the millets, should be grown on no other. Being of the 

 same carbonaceous character as Indian corn and never reaching the mature 

 quality of corn we cannot see any place in our agriculture for the plant ; for 

 on the same land Indian corn will give fully as much, if not more of real dry 

 matter. It would be hard to find a plant of any kind that can approach our 

 Indian corn for our purposes as a forage plant, to supply the carbonaceous 

 elements of the ration. Corn is the king of this class of plants for the Ameri- 

 can climate, and can never be surpassed here in its special field. Other for- 

 age plants to have special value must be protein plants, like the legumes, and 

 be supplementary to the corn plant. Any plant that simply takes the place of 

 corn is certain to fail in the United States, at least east of the Mississippi. 



KAFFIR CORN. 



This is one of the non-saccharine sorghums, which has attained consider- 

 able importance west of the Missouri as a forage and grain producing plant. 

 It withstands drought better than Indian corn, as all the sorghum family 

 do, and gives quite a large crop of grain, which has value. It has attracted 

 more attention in Kansas than anywhere else. As we have seen it grown 



