314 SELECT PLANTS FOR INDUSTRIAL CULTURE 



grain plants for the highest Alpine regions. There are annual and 

 biennial varieties, while a few allied species, hitherto not generally 

 used for fodder or cereal culture, are perennial. The Rye, though 

 not so nutritious as wheat, furnishes a most wholesome well-flavoured 

 bread, which keeps for many days, and is most extensively used in 

 Middle and North Europe and Asia, The grain, moreover, can be 

 reared in poor soil and cold climates, where wheat will no longer 

 thrive. In produce of grain, Rye is not inferior to wheat in 

 colder countries, while the yield of straw is larger, and the culture 

 less exhaustive. It is a hardy cereal, not readily subject to disease, 

 and can be grown on some kinds of peaty or sandy or nioory 

 ground. The sowing must not be effected at a period of much 

 wetness. Wide sand tracks would be uninhabitable if it were not 

 for the facility to provide human sustenance from this grateful 

 corn. It dislikes moist ground. Sandy soil gives the best grain. 

 It is a very remarkable fact that since ages, in some tracts of 

 Europe, Rye has been prolifically cultivated from year to year 

 without interruption. In this respect Rye stands favourably alone 

 among alimentary plants. It furnishes in cold countries also the 

 earliest green fodder, and the return is large. Dr. Bonder observed, 

 in cultivated turf -heaths with much humus, that the spikelets produce 

 three or even four fertile florets, and thus each spike will yield up 

 to eighty beautiful seeds. Langethal recommends for argillaceous 

 soils a mixture of early varieties of wheat and rye, the united 

 crops furnishing grain for excellent bread. When the Rye-grain 

 become attacked by Cordyceps purpurea (Fr.), or very similar 

 species of fungi, then it becomes dangerously unwholesome, but 

 then also a very important medicinal substance namely, Ergot 

 is obtained. The biennial Wallachian variety of Rye can be mown 

 or depastured prior to the season of its forming grain. In Alpine 

 regions Wallachian Rye is sown with pine-seeds, for shelter of the 

 pine seedlings in the first year. Rye is extensively used for the 

 manufacture of gin. 



Secale creticum, Linne. 



Though probably only a variety of S. cereale (L.), it deserves 

 specially to be mentioned as furnishing a bread of peculiar taste. 



Sechium edule, Swartz. 



West India. The Chocho or Chayota. The large starchy root of 

 this climber can be consumed as a culinary vegetable, while the 

 good-sized fruits are also edible. The fruit often germinates before 

 it drops. The plant bears already in the first year and may ripen 

 one hundred fruits in a year. The roots are starchy. The plant 

 comes to perfection in the warmer parts of the temperate zone. 



