ON THE MILLETS AND OTHER SMALL-GRAINED GRASSES. 415 



Shalu, Tel. Erect, panicles verticillate ; culms erect, round-jointed ; 

 seeds black or deep purple. 



Little seems to have been known in Europe of this species until 1851, 

 when Mr. Montigny, French consul at Shanghai, sent this, among 

 other seeds, to Paris, labelled " Sugar Cane of the North of China." 

 Professor Arudin of Florence would seem, however, to have grown it 

 in Tuscany in 1766, and published in 1786 an account of his experi- 

 ments in making sugar from it. 



The cultivation of this plant within the last ten years has been widely 

 extended ; more, however, as a forage plant than for its saccharine pro- 

 perties as a sugar producer. It is now grown in France, Algeria, 

 Lombardy, Russia, the United States, India, and Australia. 



An innumerable number of treatises on the culture and uses of this 

 species have been published in the United States, and on the Continent. 

 Mr. Leonard "Wray first drew attention to it here in a pamphlet printed 

 for private circulation in 1854, " On the Zulu Kaffir Imphee or Sweet 

 Reed." In America Mr. H. S. Olcott has collected in a volume under 

 the title of "Sorgho and Imphee, the Chinese and African sugar canes" 

 (Moore, New York, 1857), a large amount of useful and practical infor- 

 mation ; and Mr. Hyde has published a " Manual of the Chinese Sugar 

 Cane." We may also enumerate, for the reference of those who take an 

 interest in the culture, the following treatises published in France : — 

 " Monograj)he de la Canne a Sucre de la Chine, dite Sorgho a Sucre, par 

 le Docteur Sicard " (Marseilles) ; " Recherches sur la Sorgho Sucre," par 

 Louis Vilmorin ; " De lTntroduction et de FAcclimatation du Sorgho 

 dans le Nord de France," par Dumont- Garment ; " La Sorgho Sucre, 

 sa Culture," &c, par Louis Herve ; " La Sorgho h Sucre," par Paul 

 Madinier ;" "Guide du Cultivateur du Sorgho a Sucre," par Madinier 

 et Lacoste ; " Guide du Distillateur clu Sorgho a Sucre," par Bourdais 

 These are for the most part published at the Central Library of Agricul- 

 ture and Gardening in Paris. 



Although the seed of this species has hitherto been taken little into 

 account in an economic point of view, it appears that in France a hec- 

 tolitre of 65 kilogrammes of the grain unhusked yielded by grinding 

 13^ kilogrammes of coarse, and the same quantity of fine bran, and 

 37 kilogrammes, flour or semola. This was of a violet colour, but when 

 boiled with great care, the meal becomes perfectly white. But as this 

 product would scarcely repay the trouble of grinding, it is chiefly for 

 soups, puddings, and for feeding stock that it might be utilised. The 

 yield of seed would seem to be about 60 bushels to the acre, of juice 

 from the stalk 45 to 55 per cent, of a density varying from 1.050 to 

 1.075, and the proportion of sugar, crystallisable and uncrystallisable, 

 from 10 to 16 per cent. 



Mr. "Wray states from his Natal experience that he is acquainted 

 with fifteen varieties of this Sorghum, and certainly the panicles which 

 he has shown us are very different in the colour and shape of the seeds, 

 &c, to the ordinary Sorghum Saccharatum, 



