After reading of Mr. Peter Henderson’s experiment with Pearl Millet, as
described in the “American Agriculturist,” I determined to make a trial
with it myself. Accordingly, last year, I sowed an area of eighteen
square rods with it, in drills, fourteen inches apart; six rods were set
apart to be cut and dried for fodder. The product of the other twelve
rods was fed green. On the twentieth of June, a month after sowing, the
growth measured about three feet in hight. On this date we commenced
cutting it, and feeding to the cow all she would eat. She ate it with a
greater apparent relish than any other green feed that had been given
her. The cutting was finished on the twenty-fifth of July, on which
day the last cutting measured about four feet in hight. The second
cutting was commenced on the twenty-seventh of July, and finished on the
twenty-second of August, the growth averaging nearly three and a half
feet. The third cutting was commenced on the twenty-third and finished
on the thirty-first of August. The growth was about two feet at the
beginning of the cutting, but not more than ten inches at the finish. The
fourth and last cutting was commenced on the sixteenth, and finished on
the twenty-first of September, after which the ground appeared exhausted,
and no further growth was made. The twelve rods cut and fed green yielded
feed sufficient for seventy-five days, aside from her usual ration of
bran or oil meal, while the product from the six rods, cut and fed dry,
only two cuttings being made, was sufficient to feed her for thirty-four
days, making a total feed for one hundred and nine days, from eighteen
rods of ground; at which rate it would require sixty and one-quarter rods
of ground to furnish forage for a year.