AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 145 



constantly receives the draining of my dung heap and stables. 

 As the light grains floated on the top, I skimmed them off, 

 and let the rest stand twenty-four hours. On taking it from 

 the water, I mixed the grain with a sufficient quantity of 

 sifted wood ashes, to make it spread regularly, and sowed 

 three fields with it. The produce was sixty bushels per 

 acre. I sowed some other fields with the same seed dry, 

 but the crop, like those of my neighbors, was very poor, not 

 more than twenty bushels per acre, and mixed with green 

 corn and weeds when harvested. I also sowed some of my 

 seed dry on one ridge in each of my fields, but the produce 

 was very poor, in comparison of the other parts of the field.' 



MILLET. {Panicum miliaceurn.) The stalks and leaves 

 of this plant resemble those of Indian corn, though much 

 smal'jr. It grows to the height of three or four feet. A. 

 sandy soil suits it best. It bears drought admirably well. 

 It is said to produce as large a quantity of grain as Indian 

 corn, when cultivated in drills three feet apart and six inches 

 in the rows ; but owing to the difficulty in saving the crop 

 on account of birds, of its ripening unequally, and its shelling 

 out, it is generally thought best to sow it broad-cast, and 

 cut it when in milk for fodder. 



Mr. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, sowed one peck to the acre 

 in May, and put in four acres ; cut it the middle of August, 

 and dried it in the sun two or three days. He had seventy- 

 five bushels of seed to the acre, and six tons of fodfler on four 

 acres. His cattle relished it very well. 



It is stated in the Plough Boy, that millet sowed in June 

 on good ground will give from two to four tons of fodder, and 

 from twenty to thirty bushels of seed, equal to corn for fat- 

 tening hogs. It is cultivated in Pennsylvania and Maryland 

 as a fodder crop, and cut in the milk. It is preferred in win- 

 ter by neat cattle to clover. 



The American Farmer gives the following very flattering 

 account of this grain. Millet sown from the first of May to 

 the 20th of June has invariably furnished more fodder than 

 could have been obtained from grass under similar circum- 

 stances. On the 5th of May, five bushels were sown on four 

 acres ; on the 5th of July it was harvested, and estimated at 

 four tons per acre. It requires in all cases fine tilth, and 

 as much strength of soil as is necessary to produce heavy oats. 

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