476 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



uncooked grains are of a binding nature. Sometimes stock will refuse both seed 

 and skimmings ; but when once accustomed to them, they eat with avidity, and, if 

 judiciously fed, with perfect safety and good results. 



During 1883 and 1884, wishing to gain all the practical information possible 

 on the subject, we mailed broadcast throughout the Union, wherever a sorghum 

 man could be found, a circular letter asking various questions pertaining to the 

 sorghum industry. One of those questions was, "Your opinion of sorghum seed 

 as a fee 1 for stock? " 



We have received some hundreds of replies to these letters from all parts of the 

 Union, and some from Canada, many of which we published in the Sorghum 

 Groivers' Guide last year; and invariably all who answered the seed question 

 favored it as a stock feed; such answers as "I think it good for stock of all kinds," 

 " It is equal to corn," " It is almost equal to corn for stock," "It is superior to 

 oats," " The seed will pay for cultivating the crop," and many other commendatory 

 answers, being almost as numerous as the letters received. The seed, well cared 

 for and rightly used, will pay the actual cost of planting, cultivating and harvest- 

 ing under ordinary circumstances. 



A fair average yield we believe to be about 25 pushels per acre — at least, Jef- 

 ferson county can produce that ; which, estimated at the price of oats, 32 cents, 

 would be $8 an acre — as much as many farmers make from their corn crops; and 

 we believe it to be superior to oats as a general utility feed. The seed has also 

 been found an excellent substitute for buckwheat; and where is the American 

 farmer that don't like buckwheat cakes and 'lasses? 



Its present exclusion from the breakfast table as a substitute for the time- 

 honored buckwheat is due partly to lack of knowledge of its excellence, partly to 

 lack of facilities for converting it into flour, but principally to prejudice, often 

 coupled with pride. We don't want to say to our neighbor, "we had sorghum 

 cakes for breakfast." It don't sound so high-toned as "buckwheat cakes" does. 

 If we cultivated with a view to seed for table use, as we do other cereals, we could 

 produce a grain as fine and white as our finest corn — as a sample of seed sent me 

 by that pioneer sorghum grower of Tennessee, Ephraim Link, will show. The 

 future possibilities and probabilities of sorghum seed are great indeed. 



Our third, and one of the mo.9t important by-products of sorghum, is the scum 

 taken from the seething mass in the evaporator during its course of manipulation 

 into syrup. Prof. Wiley says : 



The scums are rich in albuminoids, and, with the precipitates, containing lime, 

 phosphoric acid, etc., make a good fertilizer. These scums also make a valuable 

 slop, being rich in qualities necessary to food for stock, especially hogs, which 

 many farmers feed upon these skimmings during making up time. I have often 

 watched the hogs with amusement. Kow eagerly they fight for a big share of the 

 trough when the skimmings are given to them hot from the evaporator, and when 

 almost scalded they run squealing around the pen, and, rubbing their snouts, re- 

 turn to the fight, still eager for the fray, and determined to have both feet there, or 

 capsize the trough. Hogs fed with the scums, mixed with cane seed or other good 

 grain, are found to produce the finest and firmest of meat, equal to the famous 

 Irish bacon. For cows it is excellent, and, once accustomed to it, they eat with a 

 relish, and with good effect on both butter and milk. 



