SORGHUM VARIETIES FOR THE GREAT PLAINS. 5 
tonio, Tex., was only 2i feet high and was fully mature two weeks 
in advance of the general crop of feterita. It has not fully retained 
either its dwarfness or its earliness, but seems each succeeding year to 
be nearer the type of ordinary feterita, so that rigid selection appears 
necessary to maintain its distinctiveness. 
Description. — Stems medium to slender, one-half to five-eighths of an inch in 
diameter, 4£ to 5* feet tall, slightly sweet, scarcely juicy, usually with but 
few tillers, and only occasional branches ; leaves 9 to 10, averaging 2 to 1\ 
inches broad and 18 to 20 inches long; head ovoid to ellipsoidal, erect, 
medium compact, 3 inches in diameter, 6 to 7 inches long, usually well filled, 
exserted 4 inches above the upper leaf sheath ; seeds circular in outline, slightly 
flattened, large, white, the upper two-thirds exposed from the glume, shatter- 
ing rather easily ; glumes ovate, black, slightly pubescent, not awned. 
Fig. 3. — The first cutting of the two new varieties of feterita at Chillicothe, Tex., in 
1914. Dwarf feterita (at the left) and Improved feterita (at the right). Plats 
planted on April 21. Photographed July 20. 
Dwarf feterita in its present form has a rather more slender stalk 
than ordinary feterita, and the head is a trifle smaller. It ripens 
about 4 days earlier, the growing season averaging 88 to 96 
days, but except for the size of the plant, the length of the growing 
season, and its greater uniformity there is no difference between it 
and ordinary feterita. As is also the case with Dwarf hegari, two 
seed crops of Dwarf feterita can sometimes be harvested in one season 
(fig. 4). This variety of feterita would seem to be of value as an 
insurance against drought. At Amarillo, Tex., in 1913, when prac- 
tically all the kafirs and milos were failures, this variety headed out 
at a height of 2^ to 3 feet and made a grain yield of 15 bushels per 
acre when ordinary Blackhull kafir under exactly similar conditions 
produced hardly a head (fig. 5). 
