Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
is a plant of the tropics and subtropics. This species is supposed to be a native of Agrica, perhaps of Abyssinia, and has been cultivated in China from a remote period. Doolittle says the Chinese make a coarse kind of bread from the flour of the seeds of sorghum, eaten principally by the poorer classes. the best kind of Chinese whiskey, often called Chinese wine, is distilled from the seeds. This Chinese form was imported into France from the north of China about 1851 and, through the agency of the Patent Office, it was obtained from France in 1854 and distributed in the United states. Of the French importation from shanghai, it is interesting to note that but one seed of all that was received, germinated. The Zulu Kaffirs cultivated the African variety, called imphee, about their huts for the purpose of chewing and sucking the stalks, and Mr. Wray recognized 15 varieties, which he introduced to this country in 1857. He found this species in 1851 and engaged in the distribution of the seed in Europe and Asia before bringing it to America. There are some mentions of this plant, however, far earlier. In 1786, a signor Pietro Arduino is said to have attempted its introduction into Italy from kaffirland but did not succeed, and Wilkinson in his Ancient Egyptians states that the plant grows about Assuan in Nubia, in the oases, and is called by the arabs dokhn. One writer attempts, indeed, to identify this plant with the variety mentioned by Pliny, S. nigrum, and described by the earlier herbalists. barth speaks of its being extensively grown in Africa, and Livingstone says the stalks are chewed as sugar cane and the people are fat thereon. Pallas says it is cultivated by the Tartars of the Crimea.
Sorghum is now cultivated throughout India, tropical Asia, Africa, southern Europe, the West Indies and America. Next to rice, says Carey, this may be said to be the most extensively cultivated of all the culmiferous tribe and forms a very considerable part of the diet of the natives of the countries where it is grown. There are many varieties. Pliny speaks of the black-seeded millet brought to Italy from the East Indies, and Fuchsius, 1542, describes the shorgi; Tragus, 1552, gives it the name panicum Dioscorides et Plinii; Gesner, 1591, calls it sorghum; Matthiolus, 1595, milium indicum; Lobel, 1576, describes this species as sorgo melica Italorum; Dodonaeus, 1583, as melica sorghum; and Lonicer, 1589, and Gerarde, 1597, describe several varieties. Durra, or Guinea corn, was introduced into Jamaica and thence into our southern states in the last century and was reported as growing in Georgia in 1838. In the West Indies, negro corn is largely consumed by the colored population when made into bread. In the United Sttes, a variety is largely grown for the making of brooms under the name of broom corn. In western Kansas, varieties are grown for the seed in regions which are too arid for the certain growing of maize under the names Egyptian corn, rice corn, pampas rice, Tennessee rice and durra. In 1805, a speciment of Egyptian corn was exhibited to the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture as grown in New Hampshire. In Egypt, six varieties are enumerated as cultivated for the seed used as food. In Algeria, two kinds are grown, the red and the white seeded. The dari, from Jaffa, is considered the best in the Mediterranean region and is exported. In Italy, the seeds, apparently of the black variety, are used for bread. At the Madras exhibition of 1857, 56 varieties were shown, and Elliott says he has seen it in all parts of India, Arabia, Abyssinia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Turkey and Italy. Sorghum is also found in Natal, where is it is called kaffir corn. Thunberg enumerates sorghum among the edible plants of Japan. In Europe, says Unger, sorghum is raised to advantage in Hungary, Dalmatia, Italy and Portugal. In the United States, sorghum will probably not be grown as a food grain except in the arid regions.
