RATE OF SOWING 



371 



than the seeds of common millet. German millet requires a richer 

 soil for full development than the other millets. 



Culture. Millets are hot-weather plants and are rather slow in 

 starting if sown early in the spring. There 

 is danger of weeds overcoming early-sown 

 millet. Seeding may take place anywhere 

 from two weeks after corn planting up to 

 within sixty to eighty days of frost. For 

 this reason millet is very frequently used 

 as a catch crop, where some early-sown 

 crop has failed. From Kansas southward 

 millet may be sown after wheat harvest, 

 and if fall rains come early enough a fair 

 crop will develop. 



Millet is quite commonly believed to be 

 hard on the land. At any rate, it is some- 

 times observed that small grains following 

 millet are less productive than on adjacent 

 lands where other crops have been 

 grown. Ordinarily this effect is not so 

 noticeable in a cultivated crop like corn. 

 After a year or two, the effect seems to 

 disappear. No one has given an ade- 

 quate explanation of this phenomenon. 

 It is not believed that millet actually 

 takes more plant food from the soil, but 

 as it is a very vigorous growing, shallow- 

 rooted plant, it is thought by some to more 

 thoroughly exhaust the available supply in 

 the upper layers, than most of the com- 

 mon crops. The theory has also been ad- 

 vanced that it may leave some toxic sub- 

 stance in the soil, but this has never been 

 demonstrated. At any rate, the injurious effect is usually small 

 and temporary, and seldom deters farmers from sowing the crop. 



Rate of Sowing. For a hay crop, from thirty to sixty pounds 

 of seed are sown per acre, and for a seed crop about half of this 



FIG. 164. Common millet. 



