Broom Corn
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Broom Corn. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a remarkable grass belonging to the same species as sorghum, kaffir corn, and durra. The stalk is succulent, but it lacks the sweetness of sorghum. The seeds are borne at the top of the stalk in panicles having long, straight branches. The tops or "brush" are used in broom-making, whence the name. Broom-corn is of two types, the dwarf and the standard. The dwarf grows from four to six feet high. The brush is used for whisk brooms and other small brooms. The standard type grows to twice the height of a man's head; the brush is from eighteen to thirty inches long, and is used for carpet brooms. Broom-corn is considered a native of the warmer parts of the Old World. The seed weighs fifty pounds to the bushel. About two quarts are required per acre. Broom-corn requires much the same growing conditions as corn, though it is able to withstand a greater degree of drought. The plant makes growth anywhere in the corn belt, but the harvest season requires dry weather as the brush is discolored by rain. The brush is cut off at maturity. The seeds are scraped off by hand, or are removed by a broom-corn thresher. The tops are sorted and are cured under cover to retain their bright, greenish color. After drying, the brush is put up in bales weighing from 300 to 400 pounds. The yield varies from a bale to two bales an acre. The price runs from $50 a ton to three times that sum. Broom-corn is a money crop in the region extending from central Illinois to the Panhandle of Texas. Illinois farmers ordinarily raise the standard brush; Oklahoma and Kansas, having a drier climate, produce the dwarf brush. The American crop for 1909 was the smallest for years, and prices ran as high as $200 per ton for choice lots. The yield was: Acres Total lbs. Illinois . . . . . 18,000 9,000,000 Kansas . . . . . 17,000 5,950,000 Oklahoma . . . . . 66,000 26,400,000 Nebraska . . . . . 1,100 440,000 Other states . . . . . 1,000 300,000 Total . . . . . 103,100 42,090,000
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a name for two plants of the order grammaceæ (grasses): (1) Sorghum vulgare. Its panicles are made into brooms for sweeping and into clothes brushes. (2) Sorghum saccharatum, of which a species of molasses or syrup is made.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's figures for 1909 — over 100,000 acres and 42 million pounds of brush, with Oklahoma alone at 66,000 acres — describe an industry that no longer exists in the United States. Vacuum cleaners, then synthetic bristles, took the household market, and what broom corn American broom-makers still use is largely imported, much of it from Mexico; Arcola, Illinois, and Lindsay, Oklahoma, keep the memory in festivals rather than acreage. Aiton's botany has held up better than Collier's: modern taxonomy agrees that broom corn, sorghum, kaffir corn and durra are one species, now called Sorghum bicolor, broom corn being the variety technicum, while Collier's split into two species does not stand. The flat stitched broom itself, credited to the Shakers, is still the shape of nearly every broom sold.
Written for this edition, 2026.