82 AGRICULTURE. 



This grain, though of the same family with wheat, 

 is less valuable. A bushel of rye weighs less, and 

 gives less flour, and of worse quality, than a bushel 

 of wheat. Still there are circumstances which, as 

 an object of culture, may give it the preference ; 

 1st, it grows well in soils where wheat cannot be 

 raised ; 2d, it bears a much greater degree of cold 

 than wheat ; 3d, it goes through all the phases of 

 vegetation in a shorter period, and, of course, ex- 

 hausts the soil less ;* 4th, if sown early in the fall, 

 it gives a great deal of pasture, without'much even- 

 tual injury to the crop; and, 5th, its produce, from 

 an equal surface, is one sixth greater than that of 

 wheat. These circumstances render it peculiarly 

 valuable for poor soils and poor people, for mount- 

 ains of great -elevation, and for high northern lati- 

 tudes-t 



Its use, as food for horses, is known as well in 

 this country as in Europe. The grain and straw, 

 chopped and mixed, form the principal horsefood 

 in Pennsylvania ; and in Germany, the postillions 

 are often seen slicing a blapk and hard rye bread, 

 called benpournikel, for their horses ; and the same 

 practice prevails in Belgium and Holland. 



Its conversion into whiskey is a use less appro- 

 ved by reason and patriotism. 



The species of this grain cultivated here are two, 

 the black and the white ; for spring rye, though often 

 mistaken for a species, is but a variety produced by 

 time and culture, and restored again to its former 

 character and habits by a similar process.f 



* We have seen a field bear rye several years in succession 

 without manure, and the last crop was much the best. This 

 fact is one of tliose which tend to discredit theory. 



t Without rye the northern part of Russia would be scarcely 

 habitable. 



t Spring rye, sown in the fall, will give a tolerable crop ; 

 winter rye, sown in the spring, a very bad one : which shows 

 tkat the nature of the plant requires a slow rather than a quick 

 vegetation. 



