SORGHUM. 47 



in charactei. When the crop is threatened with 

 serious injury from the presence of young weeds, it 

 ought to be liarrowed. More sorghum will be 

 secured, and that of a superior quality, from a piece 

 of land in which the plants have been thinned over- 

 much by harrowing than from a similar piece of 

 equal area in which the weeds have obtained the 

 ascendency over the sorghum. 



When practicable, the cultivation of sorghum 

 sown in rows sufficiently distant should be early 

 begun, it should be frequent, and may be continued 

 ylmost up to the time of the last cutting of the crop 

 for the season, and it ought to be shallow rather than 

 deep. After the first cutting of the crop, tlie benefit 

 from prompt subsequent cultivation will be 

 abundantly apparant. Some hand hoeing may be 

 given betimes with profit in the line of the row, but 

 when the land has been well prepared such work is 

 seldom necessary. 



Feeding. — There is no cast-iron rule as to when 

 the cutting of the crop should begin. It should not 

 be delayed, however, until the seed heads are formed 

 when a second cutting is intended. If the sorghum 

 is cut after that period the yield from the second 

 growth will be much reduced. When cut too early 

 the yield from the first cutting is unduly small. 

 Usually the cutting of the first growth does 

 not begin until the crop, is from two to three 

 feet high, but it may begin earlier if necessary, and 

 the cutting of the second growth may begin as soon 

 as the seed heads appear, or even earlier. Since, 

 under normal conditions, the crop is cut and fed 

 from day to day according to the needs of the live 



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