in three months, and
the ears only are taken off at first. Afterwards the straw is cut down
close to the surface of the soil, to be used for thatching, for it is
not much in request as fodder. Being a grain of small price, it is a
common food of the poorer class of natives, and really yields a sweet
palatable flour. It is also excellent as a fattening grain for
poultry.

The _Poa Abyssinica_is one of the bread-corns of Abyssinia. The bread
made from it is called _teff_, and is the ordinary food of the
country, that made from wheat being only used by the higher classes.
The way of manufacturing it is by allowing the dough to become sour,
when, generating carbonic acid gas, it serves instead of yeast. It is
then baked in circular cakes, which are white, spongy, and of a hot
acid taste, but easy of digestion. This bread, carefully toasted, and
left in water for three or four days, furnishes the _bousa_, or common
beer of the country, similar to the _quas_ of Russia.

BROOM CORN.

The production of broom corn is rapidly extending, and corn brooms are
driving broom sedge, as an article for sweeping floors, out of every
humble dwelling in the United States. There are about 1,000 acres of
it under culture in one county (Montgomery) alone, and it brings 30
dollars per acre in the field.

Messrs. Van Eppes, of Schenectady, have been engaged in the broom
manufactory business about eleven years. They have a farm of about 300
acres, 200 of which are Mohawk flats. A large portion of the flats was
formerly of little value, in consequence of being kept wet by a
shallow stream which ran through, it, and which, together with several
springs that issue from the sandy bluff on the south side of the
flats, kept the ground marshy, and unfit for cultivation. By deepening
the channel of the stream, and conducting most of the springs into it,
many acres, which were formerly almost worthless, have been made
worth 125 dollars per acre. They have also, by deepening the channel,
saving the water of the springs, and securing all the fall, made a
water privilege, on which they have erected an excellent mill, with
several run of stones, leaving besides sufficient power to carry saws
for cutting out the handles of brooms, &c.

They have about 200 acres of the flats in broom-corn. The cultivation
of this article has within a few years been simplified to almost as
great a degree as its manufacture. The seed is sown with a seed-barrow
or drill,