BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 95 
and South America; and the export of ready-made brooms is surpris- 
ingly small, though the amount is increasing of late years. In 1873, 
the value of brooms exported was $131,319; in 1874, $170,185; and 
in 1875, $204,696. 
Of late years, the business of growing broom-corn has tended to 
concentrate itself in the Western States upon large farms. 
“ At present (1876) the centre of the culture is in Illinois, especially 
along the line of the Illinois Central Railroad, where not only is the 
aggregate area immense, but individual growers engage largely in the 
business, and it is not unusual to find from 800 to 7V0 acres in this 
crop belonging to one man.” . . . “ Missouri and Kansas also produce 
a great deal of broom-corn.”* But, until a comparatively recent period, 
the crop was cultivated in a much more general way in the New Eng- 
land States, as well as in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
and elsewhere. That is to say, many of the farmers in the older 
States were accustomed to cultivate a special field or a small patch of 
the broom-corn plant in connection with their other crops, and to 
harvest it at their convenience. Often the brooms were manufactured 
at the farm. When this older method of cultivation prevailed, the seeds 
of the broom-corn plant were a noticeable feature of the crop; and 
they must have had at one time an appreciable influence on the agri- 
cultural practices of some parts of New England. But, upon the 
large Western farms of to-day and in modern practice generally, the 
brush is harvested so long before the seeds are ripe that the immature 
seeds which are scraped from the brush are little esteemed for feeding » 
animals, and are in fact often thrown away.T 
* “Broom-Corn and Brooms. A Treatise on raising Broom-Corn,”’ New 
York, Orange Judd Company, 1876, pp. 12, 40. 
+ “To obtain the finest brush, it must be harvested when the plant is in 
flower, or at most when the seed is but slightly developed. Those who follow 
the instructions of one writer, to harvest when the seeds begin to ripen, may 
get a good crop of seed, but very poor brush. Formerly, purchasers were not 
so exacting as to the quality of the brush, and the value of the seed was taken 
into account as a part of the returns for the crop; but at present one who wishes 
to produce the finest article allows only enough of the crop to mature to fur- 
nish seed for planting, as the diminished value of the brush is not compensated 
for by the value of the seed.” ... “The seed from early-cut brush hardly 
deserves the name, as it consists either of mere hulls with no kernel within 
them, or at most of hulls containing a seed from one-fourth to one-third devel- 
oped. The value of such seed will depend upon the degree of maturity. That 
from brush harvested very early and green is worth no more as food than 
