502 SORGHUM. 



will make three or four tons of the sweetest and best of hay, 

 and stock will eat up the last vestige of it. The proper 

 time for cutting is when the heads begin to flower, when it 

 can be cut and bundled as corn fodder, or left spread on the 

 ground, if the weather is good, for several days, and it will dry 

 enough to store but not in too large a bulk. Its stems are so 

 succulent that it will not cure quickly, the juices in it, how- 

 ever, will sugar directly, and then it will keep as well as 

 timothy. It possesses fattening qualities in an eminent 

 degree, and nothing like it was ever used for improving a 

 drove of mules. But if the farmer has a drove of mules or 

 herd of cattle or milch cows, it can be fed to them from the 

 the time it is two feet high, and they will eat it, with 

 avidity. By the time a field is gone over, it will be ready 

 to cut again, as the root freely throws up new suckers, and 

 will continue to do so until stopped by the frost. Thus, as 

 many as three crops can be cut betore it is destroyed by the 

 cold. Or, if it is not wanted as green forage, it; can be 

 cut at blossoming, at least twice, without resowing. And 

 the second crop will be as good as the first. A mule raiser 

 in Williamson county has several large racks, and as soon 

 as the hay is in condition to cut, he draws a load to each 

 rack daily, and the mules are allowed to go to it ad libitwm, so 

 the farmer has only to give them grain to complete the 

 process of fattening. 



With the introduction of sorghum into Tennessee agri- 

 , culture, it does seem that the last desideratum of the farmer 

 is supplied. With a climate the most salubrious and equa- 

 ble, a soil the most various and comprehensive, it sends 

 into the market, annually, grain anol hay of every descrip- 

 tion. Her cattle and sheep are sent in large numbers into 

 Northern cities, while her mules and horses supply the 

 teams of the South. Fruits and vegetables anticipate the 

 gardens of the North, and now she is able to draw a plant 

 from Africa or Asia to supply her people with an ample 

 quantity of home-made syrups and sugars. 



