A NEW CEREAL.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1254, 13 July 1880, Page 3

A NEW CEREAL.

British fanners Mill receive with mingled feelings the intelligence that a new cereal has been discovered in Kansas, and that this fresh addition to the weapons with which the agriculturists on the other side of the water attack our market is a peculiarly nutritious and hardy production. In appearance it is something like a grain of wheat, each kernel being enclosed in a separate case, and as food — as a fleshforming substance— -it fully ranks with wheat. There, however, unhappily for all corn that has hitherto been recognised by the farmer, comparison ends. It is as tenacious of life as the proverbial cat, and therein lies its value. Planted in ground upon which rain had not fallen for eight months, it sprang up at once and yielded, in face of weeks' additional drought, a crop of sixty bushels to the acre. When tested as a means of support for cattle, its stalk was found to be not only nutritions but so attractive to the animals that they seize upon it with an avidity that suprises all spectators ; while, when thrashing out, its yield was so great that in the opinion of the State Board of Agriculture it bids fair to supplant maize, rice corn, pampas corn, and Egyptian wheat. An enthusiastic American agricultrist now contemplates its importation into England with great glee, and thinks that appearance will give the •death-blow to British prejudice.' If, in exchange for what this gentleman terms 'British prejudice,' we receive a grain that will grow without the adventitious aid of rain, ye shall scarcely lose by the bargain.— Baily^Telcgmph .