Millet

“ MILLET is a small yellowish seed of a grassy plant (Holcus sorghum) , with large and compact stalks which rise to the height of seven or eight feet, and is much cultivated in several parts of India and Africa. 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 food, and is an excellent seed for the fattening of poultry. ”

“ The spring rains fell early, and on every mountain-ledge we broke the ground and planted the millet. It grew as millet has never grown before or since, in spite of the steepness of the ground, and we used to go and sit among the high thick stalks, and fondle them, and think that in a few weeks more we should be feasting upon the food we loved so much and had been without for such a long time.
“Just as the grain commenced forming, small flights of locusts began to arrive from the westward. ”

“ The season is now at hand when farmers who have light lands, and who may possibly find themselves short of fodder for next winter feeding, should prepare for a crop of millet. This is a plant that rivals corn for enduring a drought, and for rapid growth. There are three popular varieties now before the public, besides others not yet sufficiently tested for full indorsement—the coarse, light colored millet, with a rough head, Hungarian millet, with a smooth, dark brown head, yielding seeds nearly black, and a newer, light colored, round seeded, and later variety, known as the golden millet. ”

“ In places where they abound, several of them are usually to be seen in every field of large millet, each perched at the summit of a stalk eagerly devouring the ripening grain. When thus occupied they sometimes forget to call. ”

“ Make some gruel of red millet, and give to it.’
But his wife stared and said: ‘Oh, master, do you tell her to make the gazelle gruel out of red millet, which a horse would not eat? Eh, master, that is not well.’
But he answered, ‘Oh, you are mad! Rice is only kept for people.’
‘Eh, master, this is not like a gazelle. It is the apple of your eye. ”

“ Several kinds of bread are made from millet, but very little from panic: there is no grain known that weighs heavier than millet, and which swells more in baking. A modius of millet will yield sixty pounds’ weight of bread; and three sextarii steeped in water will make one modius of fermenty.105 A kind of millet106 has been introduced from India into Italy within the last ten years, of a swarthy colour, large grain, and a22 stalk like that of the reed. ”

“ When the planting season arrives, women dig small holes in the ground, into each of which they drop three grains of millet, and cover it with their feet. This simple process is sufficient in a country where the soil yields almost spontaneously. ”

“ Excluding the special rice-growing tracts, different kinds of millet are grown more extensively than any other crop from Madras in the south at least as far as Rajputana in the north. The sorghum or great millet, generally known as jowar or cholum, is the staple grain crop of southern India. The spiked millet, known as bajra or cumbu, which yields a poorer food, is grown on dry sandy soil in the Deccan and the Punjab. A third sort of millet, ragi or marua, is cultivated chiefly in Madras and Bengal. ”

“ Because, in fact, there is no trace of such a plant in the old world, although the millet, which Pliny says came ten years before he wrote from India to Italy, has some resemblance to maize, inasmuch as he calls it a grain, which grows in stalks, and is covered with leaves, which has at the top a kind of hair, and is remarkably productive—all of which does not apply to mijo, by which they commonly mean millet. After all, the Creator rules all parts of the globe: to one he gave wheat, the principal food of man ”

“ Furthermore, in the case of plants that grow from the ground, we do not observe any labour on the part of nature spent on the wheat or millet or any other seed of grain or pulse, in changing it into stalk or spike or ears; for the proper nourishment passes spontaneously, without trouble, from the common source to the individuality of each of the seeds. ”

“ In the environs of the village, millet and maize are cultivated. Markets are not held daily,. but some women came and sold us millet and pistachio-nuts for supper.
On the 25th of January, at six in the morning, we proceeded northward, at first over a sandy and well cultivated tract, and afterwards over a soil composed of red earth covered with gravel, and having ferruginous stones on the surface. This country is full of cés and nédés. We met a caravan of Mandingo merchants coming from Kayaye, where they had been buying salt. ”

“ That our millet might be abundant, And our sacrificial millet luxuriant. When our barns are full, And our stacks can be counted by tens of myriads, We proceed to make spirits and prepared grain, For offerings and sacrifice. We seat the representatives of the dead, and urge them to eat ':-Thus seeking to increase our bright happiness. ”

“ In this condition they remain out until they are sufficiently dried to be put in the barn. Corn fodder is very excellent for young dairy stock.
Common Millet is another very valuable crop for fodder in soiling, or to cure for winter use, but especially to feed out during the usual season of drought. Many varieties of millet are cultivated in this country, the ground being prepared and treated as for oats. If designed to cut for green fodder, half a bushel of seed to the acre should be used ”

“ With a thick stick they make holes in the ground six inches deep, and into these holes they drop three or four grains of millet, covering them with sand or light mould. They never prepare the ground in any way, and only weed it after the millet has come up. To save themselves trouble they select a poor soil, because a richer would require more weeding, and they are naturally lazy. When the seed is sown, they wait quietly till the millet makes it appearance, then thin it a little, and weed round the roots to give it air ”

“ Millets.—Taking India as a whole, the staple food grain is neither rice nor wheat, but millets, which are probably the most prolific grain in the world, and the best adapted to the vicissitudes of a tropical climate. ”

“ In “The Sower” he emphasises the fact that the fruits of the harvest are not to be had without due labour being expended upon the earth. The sloping field, barren of vegetation, and crowned at the top with a small clump of trees, is being broken up by the distant plough drawn by two horses and guided by a peasant. The latter figure is one of the noblest of Millet’s creations. By his strained and ever-attentive attitude, by his continuous tramp over the rough and broken ground, he shows us the monotony of his toil. ”

“ The soil is little better than white sand, on which without manure they attempt to grow millet, which is to them in the place of rice, pumpkins, onions, and tobacco; but the look of their plots is as if they had been cultivated ten years ago, and some chance-sown grain and vegetables had come up among the weeds. When nothing more will grow, they partially clear another bit of forest, and exhaust that in its turn. ”

“ A moist loam or muck is the best soil adapted to millet; but very great crops have been grown on dry upland. It is very palatable and nutritious for milch cows, both green and when properly cured. The curing should be very much like that of clover, care being taken not to over-dry it. For fodder, either green or cured, it is cut before ripening. In this state all cattle eat it as readily as green corn, and a less extent will feed them. Millet is worthy of a widely-extended cultivation, particularly on dairy farms. Indian millet is another cultivated variety. ”

“ If preferred, the bread can be baked in small patty-pans, and when cooked, broken open, a small piece of butter put in, and sent to table.
Italian Millet, or Great Indian Millet, is cultivated in Egypt and Nubia, where it is called dhourra, and is used as human food and also for the fermentation of beer. ”

“ Millets (various species of panicum) are most extensively cultivated in the south-east of Europe. The kind of millet known as guinea-corn or durra (Sorghum vulgare Pers.) , so extensively cultivated in Africa and India, is grown to a small extent on the east side and in the interior of Istria. ”

“ We came to our old empty house, where they provided us in bedding and coverlids, and gave us some fuel They gave us the carcase of a small lean sheep, as food for us three in six days, and lent us a pot and trivet to boil our flesh, and gave us a platter of millet every day. We boiled our meat first in water, and afterwards boiled our millet in the broth ”

“ An instance of Millet in a less pessimistic mood than we generally find him. The wood-cutter, pursuing his vocation on a warm sunny day, full of life and vigour, brings before us the joyous side of peasant life. We feel that he is happy and contented, and if his lot is somewhat hard, he has none of those distracting ambitions which mar the enjoyment in life to all who fall a prey to them. ”

“ Artist: Jean François Millet (mē′lē′)
Birthplace: Gruchy, France.
Dates: Born, 1814; died, 1875. The story of the picture. In this picture Millet takes us out into the country, to the wheat fields. The reapers have passed over the field, cutting down the wheat with a small sickle. Although we cannot see them in the act of cutting, we know they used a sickle in those days by other pictures Millet has painted. There is one called “The Reaper” which represents a man grasping the tall stalks of wheat with one hand and cutting them close to the ground with a small sickle. ”

“ But the cultivated plants—wheat, millet, etc.—differ from all existing varieties, and invariably have smaller seeds or fruits.22 This shows us that man has evidently been able to effect considerable change by cultivation, in the common grains, during the course of the many centuries which separate the Neolithic times from our own age. But if this rate of change be adopted as a measure of time, what shall we say is to the antiquity demanded to explain the origin of cultivated grain from the wild grasses of their first form? ”

“ They cultivate the ground to a large extent, and draw the greater portion of their food from it. A species of millet, called by the colonists Kaffir corn, was the grain exclusively cultivated by them prior to the advent of Europeans. ”

“ One might suppose that after the wheat harvest, stubble fields would be much in evidence. But they are not, for the millet promptly appears. It is hardly noticeable when the wheat is standing. But it grows rapidly, and as soon as the wheat is out of the way, it covers great areas with its refreshing green, looking in its earlier stages like young corn. ”

“ As a rule only one crop a year was taken off the land; but millet, carrots and turnips were sown after the wheat crop; in this case the millet did not ripen, but was valuable as green forage; the clover was cut four times in the year. ”

“ What did the snake? He arose and made the forest a level plain, and sowed millet, and thought and thought, and it was grown up by daybreak. When the old man got up, he finds a sack of millet, and he made a cake with sweet milk. The old man took the cake and went to the king. ”

“ When the millet is ripe, they cut it, and thrash it with sticks. The grain is put into sacks, and carried to the camp, and those who have reaped more than they are likely to want carry the surplus to the markets, and sell it to the dealers. ”

“ All animals prefer millet, cut in the milk, to hay. It is a less profitable crop for grain, on account of the irregularity of its ripening, and its extreme liability to shell, when dry. It must be cut as soon as the seed begins [Pg 288] to harden. It also attracts swarms of birds, which are exceedingly fond of the seed. About three tons per acre is an average crop on tolerably good land. From one to three pecks of seed to the acre are sown broadcast. When sown in drills and cultivated, it grows very large, and requires only four quarts of seed per acre. ”

“ We must endeavor to start with the simplest forms of the great group of plants to which the cereals and the other grasses belong, and we must try to see by what steps this primitive type gave birth, first to the brilliantly colored lilies, next to the degraded rushes and sedges, and then to the still more degenerate grasses, from one or other of whose richer grains man has finally developed his wheat, his rice, his millet, and his barley. ”

“ In good seasons it is sufficient for the cultivation of the summer crop of millet, and for the supply of the perennial streams and springs, on which the irrigation of the winter crops of wheat and barley depend. ”

“ The limits of the cultivation of maize and of olives in France are parallel to those which bound the vine and corn in succession to the north. In the north of Italy, west of Milan, we first meet with the cultivation of rice; which extends over all the southern part of Asia, wherever the land can be at pleasure covered with water. In great part of Africa millet is one of the principal kinds of grain. ”

“ After that, the millet trader, that Roḍiyā, having put the cakes in the rice mortar that was full of the best cakes, pounded them and ate. Then I again put a gill of rice into water, and pounded it into flour, saying that you will come; and only just now finished cooking.”
The millet trader said, “Hā. It is good,” and ate.
Afterwards the woman said, “Now then, are we not cutting the child’s hair to-morrow? Now, what will you give on account of it?”
The millet trader said, “What have I got to give? When coming for millet I only brought four tuttu.”2
Then the woman, saying, “Be off! Be off! ”

“ It is extensively cultivated as a rainy-season crop over most of India — on the Himalayas to 6500 feet. It thrives on light sandy soils and is often cultivated when the rains are over, on the banks of rich silt deposited by rivers. The yield is fifty fold in good soil. It is the quickest-growing millet, harvested sometimes in six weeks, and is consumed chiefly by the poorer classes, for whom it is useful because it ripens early and affords a cheap article of food before bajra and the other millets. ”