40 POPULAR ERRORS. 



many parts of Europe that it was degenerated rye. 

 Tusser, in his " Five Hundred Points of Good 

 Husbandly,*' says: 



" Who soweth his barlie too soon or in raine, 

 Of otes and of thistles shal after cornplaine." 



A writer in the Gardeners' Chronicle says, "How 

 often have we heard it asserted that it is dangerous 



O 



to sow Italian Rye Grass, as it is sure to turn into 

 Couch" [Quack grass]. In some localities the 

 various grains are supposed to be convertible into 

 each other in a certain progressive order wheat 

 into rye, rye into barley, barley into rye grass, and 

 rye grass into chess. In this free country where 

 "belief is untramelled, even by reason," we go at 

 one step from, wheat to chess. In the English agri- 

 cultural journals of a number of years ago are ex- 

 plicit directions for transforming one kind of grain 

 into another. A case in which these directions were 

 followed, apparently with more than usual care, may 

 be given as an example: 1 "In June, 1855, a few 

 rows of oats were dibbled in in a garden, each oat 

 carefully noted before planting. The plants were 

 cut down in the green state twice during the sum- 

 mer, and were protected from frost in the winter. 

 Several of the stools survived the winter, and in the 

 summer of 1856 produced several ears of perfectly 

 formed barley, of thin quality, but entirely distinct 



i Journal of Agriculture, 1861, p. 321. 



