94 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
No. 9.—A Record of Results obtained on Analyzing the 
Seeds of Broom-Corn. By F. H. Storer, Professor of 
Agricultura] Chemistry. 
THe manufacture of brooms from the spikes of that variety of 
Sorghum vulgare which is called by our farmers broom-corn, adopted 
in this country towards the close of the eighteenth century, apparently 
from the south of Europe,* soon increased to a remarkable extent, and 
became, long since, a very important branch of industry. 
Indeed, the rapidity with which the previously insignificant occupa- 
tion of making corn-brooms has been developed in this country to the 
rank of a great manufacturing business furnishes a noteworthy illus- 
tration both of the ingenuity and enterprise of the American people, 
and of a certain national mobility or readiness to accept improvements 
which permits such enterprise to find scope. 
According to the little manual on “ Broom-Corn and Brooms” by 
the editors of the “ American Agriculturist,” recently published in New 
York by the Orange Judd Company (1876), there are in the United 
States 625 manufactories, engaged in making brooms and whisks, which 
employ 5,206 hands. The amount of capital invested in the business 
is estimated at a little more than $2,000,000. The value of brooms 
manufactured is $6,622,285 and the amount annually paid for the 
manufactured brush is $3,672,837. Very little manufactured brush is 
exported from the country, an insignificant amount being sent to Cuba 
* They make brushes and brooms of its (Sorghum vulgare) stalks in Italy, 
which Ray observed in the shops at Venice, and which are sent to this country 
(England). Loudon, “ Encyclopedia of Agriculture,” p. 833, § 5180. So, too, in 
Loudon’s ‘‘ Encyclopedia of Plants,” p. 860, note 2131, it is stated that brooms 
are made of the spikes of sorghum vulgare, which are also sent to England from 
Italy for the same purpose. 
For a detailed description, with figures, of the broom corn, and other varieties 
of sorghum (besides other plants), that are cultivated in Italy for the manufac- 
ture of brooms and brushes, see Heuzé, G., “ L’ Agriculture de l’Italie Septen- 
trionale,” Paris, 1864, p. 859. According to Heuzé (p. 360), broom-corn was 
introduced into Europe from the East Indies in the seventeenth century. He 
remarks that the seeds are used in Italy for feeding cattle and poultry, and 
(p. 366), that France imports a certain quantity of the brush from Italy every 
year. According to V. Bibra, in his ‘“ Die Getreidearten und das Brod,” Niirn- 
berg, 1861, p. 346, the spikes of sorghum vulgare are manufactured into a variety 
of brooms and brushes in the East Indies and Arabia. 
