THE SORGHUMS 241 



kafir and may make a crop where the rainfall is only 10 

 to 14 inches. 



Other advantages over kafir are its earlier maturity and its 

 freedom from attack by kernel smut. The disadvantages of milo 

 as compared with kafir are: (1) the leaves are fewer and the 

 stems more pithy; (2) the fact that the leaves of milo do not 

 keep perfectly green up to the time of the ripening of seed, 

 making its forage less palatable. 



The methods of planting, cultivating, and harvesting milo are 

 the same as for kafir. In experiments made in the northwestern 

 part of Texas, a distance of 6 inches between plants in the row 

 afforded the largest yield of seed. 



Selection has resulted in a dwarf variety and also in strains 

 having erect heads, thus making harvesting easier than with the 

 pendant heads, usual in the plants of milo. 



BROOM-CORN 



223. Description. Broom-corn is a tall, nonsaccharine 

 sorghum. It is distinguished from other sorghums by the 

 great length and toughness of the branches that make up 

 the panicle (Fig. 120). The valuable part of broom-corn 

 consists of these long heads after the removal of the im- 

 mature seed ; this useful part is called the " brush," and 

 from it brooms and various kinds of brushes are made. 



A fair yield of cured and prepared brush of the standard varie- 

 ties is about one third of a ton per acre. The dwarf varieties 

 ordinarily yield about one fifth of a ton of brush per acre, but 

 this dwarf brush commands a higher price. The price of broom- 

 corn is subject to violent fluctuations ; eighty dollars per ton of 

 brush may be taken as an average, but the price sometimes sinks 

 below this and sometimes rises to about double this figure. The 

 fluctuations in price are largely due to the fact that only a rela- 

 tively small area (usually less than 40,000 acres and some years 

 less than 20,000 acres) is required to furnish the entire American 

 R 



