ON THE MILLETS AND OTHER SMALL-GRAINED GRASSES. 413 



The consideration, therefore, of the millets is not without interest, 

 both in a commercial and agricultural point of view ; and since 

 there is little collected accessible information on these plants, we 

 propose to treat somewhat at length of their peculiarities and uses, 

 and shall endeavour to reconcile some discrepancies, and correct popu- 

 lar errors which are very apt to lead those astray who have not looked 

 very closely into the subject. 



If we turn to an ordinary dictionary we shall merely find " Millet — 

 the name of a plant." Whilst Webster quotes the ' Penny Cyclopsedia.' 

 " Millet, a plant, or the grain of a plant of the genus Holcus, or Sorghum, 

 having a stalk resembling a jointed reed, and classed by botanists among 

 the grasses. Various species are used as food for man and animals, but 

 the Indian Millet is the most common. The species are mostly natives 

 of warm climates." 



Simmonds's more recent 'Dictionary oi Trade Products,' tells us 

 that " Millet is a common name for several species of small seed corn, 

 which on the Mediterranean coasts are generally called Dhurra, in the 

 West Indies guinea corn," &c. 



But we want something more than this ; and although we cannot 

 branch out here into an abstract definition of what is millet and what 

 is not, and where the line of demarcation of these small seeded grains 

 should be drawn ; we can at least look at the matter in a technological 

 point of view, and show what are the millets, popularly so termed, 

 cultivated in different countries, and what are their local and generic 

 names for identification, and what their uses, modes of cultivation, &c. 



Dr. Forbes Watson, in his treatise " On the Composition and Relative 

 Value of the Food Grains of India," states that the millets in India occupy 

 a position second to none in the country, and form the staple food of 

 a larger number of the population than perhaps all the other cereals put 

 together. 



At the head of the list of these stands the millet called Bajra (Peni- 

 cillaria spicata), and which itself, with the usual adjuncts of a little 

 milk, &c, forms the chief article of diet of a very large number. 



Compared with rice, it is considerably more nutritious, containing 

 about 10-ir per cent, of gluten, and giving a proportion between the car- 

 bonaceous and nitrogenous compounds of from 7 to 7 J per cent, of the 

 former to one of the latter, whereas the kind of rice most rich in gluten 

 contains only about 85 per cent, of that substance, and gives the pro- 

 portion of a little more than 9 of the non-nitrogenous to the nitroge- 

 nous — thus involving the addition of a large quantity of some pulse or 

 extra nitrogenous substance to increase the proportion between the 

 flesh-forming and heat-and-fat-yielding constituents. 



The great millet, Jowarree {Sorghum vulgare) stands next in order of 

 importance, both on account of its intrinsic value as well as the num- 

 bers it chiefly supplies with food. 



Natchenee or Ragee (Eleusine Coracana) stands at the bottom of the 



