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of rye to great advantage in fattenmg swine. The Hatfield 

 farmers, some of the best feeders of stock in the country, 

 choose to purchase rye, of which they themselves grow scarce- 

 ly any, even at a price a third higher than corn, that they may 

 use it in feeding their fattening cattle. The dairy farmers in 

 Cheshire, Berkshire county, prefer it to Indian meal, to give to 

 their milch cows in the spring before they turn them to grass, 

 from a conviction, founded on long experience, that it produces 

 more milk and more cream. The custom of the Dutch farm- 

 ers, so celebrated for their dairies and the excellence of their 

 dairy produce, is, to give their cows daily, while in milk, a 

 draught of rye meal mixed with water. 



Rye is not particularly an impoverisher of the soil. When 

 clover is sown with it, to be ploughed in with the stubble, it is 

 considered a good mode of enriching the land. One of the best 

 farmers in Franklin county informs me, that he has sown rye 

 for seven years in succession on the same ground, with the ex- 

 ception of one year — say the fifth — when he took a crop of 

 corn from the land. The corn was manured in the hill; but, 

 with that exception, no manure was applied. When the rye 

 was sown, from five to six lbs, of clover were sown ; and this, 

 in the ensuing year, was ploughed in with the stubble. By 

 this husbandry, the land is placed in a course of gradual im- 

 provement. Though this was the method adopted by one of 

 the best farmers in Franklin county, yet I am far from think- 

 ing highly of this mode of husbandry. It certainly might 

 be worse ; but the crop deserves far better treatment than this. 

 It shows however how well it recompenses even a moderate 

 cultivation, 



I have no means of ascertaining the weight of straw which 

 may be expected from an acre of rye. This of course must de- 

 pend much upon the cultivation, and, in every case, somewhat 

 upon the manner in which the crop is gathered, whether it be 

 cut high or low, or whether with a sickle or a cradle. The gen- 

 eral opinion is that the weight of straw is twice the weight of 

 grain. Such current prejudices are not always without founda- 



