HOLCUS, INDIAN MILLET or CORN; a genus of the monococia order, belonging to the polygamia class of plants.
Species. Of this genus there are ten species, two of which are natives of Britain. The most remarkable of these is the lanatus, or creeping soft-grass of Hudson; for the description and properties of which, see AGRICULTURE, no 57. The most remarkable of the foreign species is the forghum, or Guinea-corn. The stalks are large, compact, and full eight feet high. In Senegal the fields are entirely covered with it. The negroes, who call it guiarost, cover the ears when ripe with its own leaves to shelter it from the sparrows, which are very mischievous in that country. The grain made into bread, or otherwise used, is esteemed very wholesome. With this the slaves in the West Indies are generally fed, each being allowed from a pint to a quart every day. The juice of the stalks is so agreeably luscious, that, if prepared as the sugar-canes, they would afford an excellent sugar. The negroes on the coast of Guinea make of two kinds of millet a thick-grained pap called coucou, which is their common food.