SORGHUM VULGARE, 



27 



Sowing. The first sowings of the kharif are those of cotton, and as soon as these are finished 



juar is commenced with. The seed is sown broad-cast and ploughed in, being used at 

 the rate of 3 to 6 seers per acre if for a grain crop, and 12 seers per acre if for fodder, 

 when thickness is the chief thing looked to. The seed of the minor crops {arhar, mung, 

 &c., known collectively as utara) is mixed with the juar seed and scattered with it ; lohia 

 alone being sown by hand in lines across the field (Cawnpore). In some parts of the 

 Provinces the finest heads are picked out at each harvest and set aside for sowing in the 

 succeeding year (Cawnpore). 



Irrigation. Irrigation is very seldom used, unless the crop has been sown before the commence- 



ment of the rains, or the season is peculiarly unpropitious. The crop is generally weed- 

 ed at least once, sometimes by hand, but often by merely driving a plough in lines through 

 the field when the plants are about a foot high, so as to open out the soil round the 

 plant roots which has a very beneficial effect. 



Harvesting. The til and the pulses (with the exception of arhar) are first of all gathered and 



carried to the threshing floor ; the juar is harvested a fortnight later, generally by cutting 

 off the heads (called [hhuttas) with the sickle, leaving the stalks standing in the field 

 till the cultivator has leisure to cut and stack them. The grain is trodden out by 

 3attle and winnowed in the usual way. As an illustration of the superstitious obser- 

 vances which attend almost every agricultural process, and which are especially prom- 

 inent at sowing and harvest time, the following description of juar threshing is taken 

 from Mr. Wright's Memo, on the Agriculture of the Cawnpore District. " The juar 

 " was heaped by the cultivator in the shape of the figure 8, one end towards the Ganges, 

 " and a sickle and a branch of maddr^ in honour of Shaikh Madar (a local saint) stuck 

 " up in it. All round the heap a line of cow-dung was traced, and the smoke of a sacri- 

 " ficial fire made to blow upon the heap to keep off" evil spirits {jins). A double handful 

 " of grain was given in honour of Shaikh Madar, one to the village minstrel {bhdt), one 

 " to the Brahmin, one to the family priest {paroliit), and half a seer each to the village 

 " carpenter, blacksmith, barber and water-carrier." 



Diseases and injuries. The most peculiar of the diseases to which juar is liable is that which makes the 



young stalks poisonous to cattle if eaten by them when semi-parched from want of rain. 

 Of the fact there can be no doubt; in the scarcity of 1877 lai'ge numbers of cattle were 

 known to perish from this cause, their bodies becoming inflated after a meal of the young 

 juar plants, and death ensuing shortly afterwards, apparently in severe pain. A good 

 explanation is not, however, forthcoming. The opinion universally accepted by natives 

 is that young juar when suffering from deficiency of rain becomes infested with an insect 

 called bhaunri, to which its poisonous effect on cattle is due. Immediately rain falls the 

 insect is said to perish, and unless the ears have appeared before the rain failed, the crop 

 often recovers itself and yields a good outturn of grain. Juar is peculiarly liable to 

 a species of bunt [Tillelid), a parasitic fungus well known in English corn-fields, which 

 converts the whole contents of grains, externally apparently perfectly healthy, into a 

 foul greasy dark coloured powder. But birds and squirrels are probably the worst ene- 

 mies the cultivator has to contend with, and their depredations necessitate tlie crops being 

 watched for at least 25 days before it is cut, which adds of course to the cost of cultivation. 



* A common weQi—Calatropis gigantea. 



