If the greatest amount of seed is desired from the crop, it is best to sow it in drills, two to two-and-a-half feet apart, using a seed drill for the purpose.  This admits of the use of a small harrow or cultivator between the rows, while the plants are small, which keeps out the weeds.  The crop will ripen more uniformly in this way than broadcast, and enables the cultivator to cut it when there will be the least waste.  The seed shatters out very easily when it is ripe, and when the crop ripens unequally it cannot be cut without loss, because either a portion of it will be immature, or, if left till it is all ripe, the seed of the earliest falls out.  It should be closely watched, and cut in just about the same stage that it is proper to cut wheat, while the grain may be crushed between the fingers.  It may be cut with a grain cradle, and, when dry, bound and shocked like grain; but it should be threshed out as soon as practicable, on account of its being usually much attacked by birds, many kinds of which are very fond of the seed.  In particular localities they assail the crop in such numbers, from the time it is out of the “milk,” till it is harvested and carried off the field, that it is no object to attempt to ripen it.  This crop is sometimes sown in drills, when it is only intended for fodder, being cut and cured in bundles, as the stalks of Indian corn are.  It is best to pass it through a cutting machine before feeding it to stock; indeed, all millet hay will be fed with less loss in this way, than if fed to animals without cutting.

The seed is used in various European countries as a substitute for sago, for which it is considered excellent.  It is likewise a valuable food for poultry, particularly for young chickens, which from the smallness of the grain can eat it readily, and it appears to be wholesome for them.

In some countries millet seed is ground into flour and converted into bread; but this is brown and heavy.  It is, however, useful in other respects, as a substitute for rice.  A good vinegar has been made from it by fermentation, and, on distillation, it yields a strong spirit.  Millet seed—­the produce of H. saccharatum—­is imported into this country from the East Indies for the purpose chiefly of puddings; by many persons it is preferred to rice.  It is cultivated largely in China and Cochin-China.  The stalks, if subjected to the same process that is adopted with the sugar-cane, yield a sweet juice, from which an excellent kind of sugar may be made.

Millet will grow best on light, dry soils.  The ground being first well prepared, half a bushel of seed to the acre is ploughed in at the commencement of the rains, in India.  The crop ripens within three months from the time of sowing.  The usual produce is about 16 bushels to the acre.  The Canary Islands export annually about 212,400 bushels of millet.

Great Indian Millet, or Guinea Corn.—­This is a native of India (the Sorghum vulgare, the Andropogon Sorghum of Roxburgh), which produces a grain a little larger than mustard or millet seed.  It is grown in most tropical countries, and has peculiar local names.  In the West Indies, where it is chiefly raised for feeding poultry, it is called Guinea corn.  In Egypt it is known as Dhurra, in Hindostan and Bengal as Joar, and in some districts as Cush.