414 GKArE CULTURE AND WINE-MAKING. 



the employment of irrigation during the early stages of its growth, 

 and when'it is most rapidly developing itself; but that if employ- 

 ed at a later date, when it is approaching maturit}^, it proves dele- 

 terious, by impeding the elaboration of the saccharine principle, 

 and rendering the canes too watery. M. Hardy, the intelligent 

 director of the Government Nursery in Algeria, says that the 

 Sorgho flourishes extremely well on soils containing carbonate of 

 lime, and he advises frequent liming of such soils as are deficient 

 in it. This recommendation finds its explanation in the astonish- 

 ing success of the Sorgho on the chalky soils of Champagne, 

 where otherwise they obtained very mediocre results ; but, says 

 M. Madinier, if calcareous applications seem desirable, it is by no 

 means the same of such other saline manures as have been found 

 by experience to be unfavorable for the sugar-cane and the sugar- 

 beet, Lacoste urges upon his readers to avoid attempting the 

 Sorgho culture on soils where the soluble inorganic matters are 

 very abundant, because they would thus be exposed to the unde- 

 sirable perplexity of producing juice in their plants of a saline 

 character, and completely unsuitable to the extraction of sugar. 

 Count Beauregard says that the Sorgho will flourish well on al- 

 most all soils if they be underdrained and irrigated; but his ex- 

 perience shows him what would be supposed by any sensible 

 man, that the best results are obtained on soils of the best quality 

 that are best cultivated. 



Yield of Steel and Fodder. 



In respect to the yield of seed per acre, the North, says M. d'lv- 

 ernois, can not hope to equal the South, where sixty bushels are 

 produced. This result was obtained in the neighborhood of lly- 

 eres. Colonel Peters, of Georgia, obtained twenty-five bushels 

 per acre, of thirty-six pounds per bushel. Governor Ilammond, 

 of South Carolina, weighed a peck after three days' drying in the 

 sun, and found the weight to be thirty-eight pounds per bushel. 

 I have weighed several lots from Vilmorin, Andrieux, & Co., of 

 Paris, and Count Beauregard, and found the weight to vary from 

 forty to forty-eight pounds. Mr. Hyde says the yield is from 

 twenty-five to fifty bushels to the acre. Thus we see that on par- 

 tially exhausted wheat soils, or alluvial soils, both of which are 

 specially adapted to the Sorgho, instead of a poor yield of wheat, 

 we may plant the former, and, not taking any thing else into con- 

 sideration, obtain a crop of from twenty-five to sixty bushels of 

 seed. Mr. Brown said that nine tons of dry fodder had been cut 

 in Kentucky last season : Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, president of 

 the United States Agricultural Society, teUs me that he knows 

 one instance where 19.844 lbs. of fodder had been obtained, the 

 weight taken after a three months' drying. The weight of the 

 green stalks varies from seven to forty tons, according to circum- 

 stances. The director of the Government Nursery at Hamma, 



