The so-called White milo is an inferior, tall growing true kafir.
Brown durra is grown rather extensively in California under the name Egyptian corn, although this latter name is applied to other sorts, especially to White durra. It is very similar in many re spects to Yellow milo, but the grain is darker in color and the heads are rather more uniformly goosenecked. The crop is less valuable than Yellow mile, as the grain shatters readily when ripe. Its cultivation is in every way the same as that of kafir and Yellow mile.
White durra or Jerusalem corn is little grown in this country. The heads are very compact, usually turn down, are frequently injured by insects and fungous diseases, and the grain shatters badly. Any of the three preceding varieties will prove more satimfactory than will this sort. Either kafir or Yellow milo usually proves more satisfac tory than White durra.
Culture.
Soils.—Kafir is capa ble of considerable adaptation, and seems to do equally well on a good clay or on a loam soil. It succeeds much better on a poor soil than many other crops, but does proportionately better on rich land.
Soil-preparation a n d seeding.— Land is pre pared for seeding in much the same way as for maize. If the kafir is to be grown for grain, the land is often plowed early in the spring, thoroughly worked down with harrOw and disk and planted with a corn planter, using the drill ing attachment. List ing, however, seems to be a more popular met hod in the West, especially on warm soils and in late planting. To prepare for listing, the land should be disked early in the spring to conserve the soil moisture. At planting time furrows are thrown out with a lister, and the seed drilled in. The rows should be three to three and a half feet apart, and the plants three to five inches apart in the row. Three to six pounds of seed will plant an acre.
When kafir is grown for forage the land is pre pared and planted in the same way, except that the plants should be about one inch apart in the row. However, a great deal of kafir forage is raised by sowing either broadcast or with a press drill at the rate of one to two bushels of seed per acre.
Kafir should be seeded when the weather is warm and settled. If the ground is cold the seed may rot. The seed should be kept in a dry place
over winter, and not in bulk, to avoid heating, which destroys the germinating power. Seed from long, rather compact heads is preferred.
The after-care of the crop is essentially the same as for maize. Because of the shallow root system, the cultivation should not be deep. The first one or two cultivations may be given with the sled culti vator or with the spiketooth harrow. Later plow ings may be given with any of the shallow-running shovel, sweep, or disk cultivators. Kafir is fre auentiv Planted on freshly broken sod. and in that case it is seldom cultivated more than once, if at all. Under these unfavorable conditions, a good crop is frequently made. The crop requires 120 to 140 days in which to mature.
Harvesting.
The grain should be allowed to get fairly mature before harvesting ; the stalks may be cut with the corn-binder and shocked like corn, or the heads may be removed from the standing stalks with a header or a sharp knife. If cut in either of the latter ways, they should be stored in small piles or spread in thin layers until thoroughly cured, as the grain heats readily if at all moist. After the heads are removed, the stalks may be cut with the corn binder for stover, or they may be pastured. If the stalks are cut before heading, the heads may be removed when the fodder is thoroughly cured by laying the bundles on a block and cutting off the heads with a sharp knife, broadaxe or saw. When the heads are thoroughly dry, the grain may be threshed out by running the heads through an ordinary grain thresher. The grain may also be threshed out while the heads are still on the bundles, by inserting the ends of the bundles in the thresher and withdrawing the stalks when the grain is removed. The more improved separators have a circular saw attached, which removes the heads and drops them on the feeding table. If the kafir is desired for seed, a part of the concaves should be removed from the machine, to prevent cracking the grain. A fair yield of grain is twenty to forty bushels to the acre, although yields of over one hundred bushels have been reported ; the fodder crop ranges from one and one-half to four tons to the acre.