PUBLISHED BY rHOMAS W. 8HK .:'AKI), ROOKRS' liUI l.lilNCiS, CC^NtiUKSS KIllKKT, (KUURTH DOOIl 1- ROM STAri: 8TKKKT.) 



^OL. II. 



BOSTON, SATLmOAY, AUGUST 2<^1«23. 



farmer's and Gardener's Rancubnuiccr. \ such that wlieat lias become tl.e more [irevalent 



No. 4. 



1 crop. 



[nv THE EDITOR.] | u' Np,.cr,i,eless on light, Fi.n.ly soils rye is 



Rye. Tlie farmer, ivho hns it in hi'! pn"'cr ; (,,,jiorallv more prolitiihle than wheat, and the 



drive his t)u«iness, instead of being driven by j i„.ead which is maile from a mixtnre of tlie two 

 will do well to sow his winter rye some time !^,.;,j„g js here esti'emed more wholesome to 

 tween the middip of August and the middle ; people in general than that which is made from 

 Septemlier. If it be sowed so early it will | „.],(,;it alone." 



less apt to winter-kill, will require less seed, | When rye is sown upon light land, it ripens 

 growth will be stouter, and the produce | fn„g|, earlier than on a cold stiff ground, and it 



is said by seme writers that by continuing to 



sow on such a soil for two or three years, it 



will be forwarded so mucli as to ripen a month 



that wmter-rye and spring-rye are of the | earlier than that which has been raised upon 



pecies; and the Farmers' Assistant says I strong cold ground. For this reason, those who 



eater, other things being equal, than if the 



wing was deferred till late in autumn. 



Some foreign writers on aoriculture assure 



there is but one kind of rye ; but this may be 



\de wmter-rye or spring-rye, by gradually 



'j-.taating it to different times of sowing. — 



Ike winter-rye, for instance, and sow it later 



i later each tail, and it may at length be sown 



the spring, and become spring-rye. On the 



trarv, sow spring-rye very late in the fall at 



t, and you may gradually sow it earlier each 



r, until it may be sown in May, and used ihe 



t season for pasture, or mowing, and then 



n to perfection the second year." The 



le opinion is likewise expressed in Deane's 



w England Farmer. 



lye IS capable of being' cultivated on most 

 Is of land, but the light sandy soils, where 

 eat will not thrive, are the sorts of soil on 

 ch it will, generally speaking, he found 

 it profitable to raise this kind of produce. 

 John Sinclair ol>serves that " this specic> 

 •rain is not so extensively cultivated in fc'cut- 

 I as it ought to be, (for weighty crops oi" i> 

 ht be raised on soils of the most porous an^' 

 nature, and upon almost pure sand alon^^ 

 sea shore ;) and the winter sort, withou; 

 ch the people living on the coasts of th( 

 ic could hardly be subsisted, is almost un- 

 wn. A correspondent informs me that he 

 had 35 bushels of rye per English acre, oi 

 that would not have produced 20 busheb 

 ats. Indeed, oats, sown along side of the 

 upon the same field, and on land as nearly 

 ould be judged of the same quality, were 

 eel}' worth the expense of reaping. On 

 rish land, rye has been found a more cer- 

 crop than oats. Mr. George Culley re- 

 »s that rye, like oats, will answer in crude 

 without lime, or calcarious manures, which 

 ers that crop peculiarly calculated for waste 

 3 when first brought into cultivation." 

 mds which will produce tolerable crops of 

 at had better be cultivated for the purpose 

 lising wheat than rye. And, if we may be- 

 ; what English writers tell us relative to 

 subject, the use of lime for manure will of 

 o far change the nature of a poor soil pro- 

 only ("or rye, that wheat may be made its 

 itutc. Mr. Marshall, in his Rural Economy 

 yrkshire^ says '■ before the use of lime was 

 alenl much rye was grown on the lighter 

 ■, upon the margin of the Vale, and in the 

 "lands scarcely any other crops than rye 

 jals were attempted. ?7ow, rye is princi- 

 contiued to the Moorland-dales ; and even 

 5 the aileration of soils by lime ha.s been 



ow their rye late will do well to provide them- 

 selves with this early seed. 



Dr. Elliot informs, that if rye be sowed suc- 

 cessively every year upon the same land, both 

 the crop and the land will be greatly improved, 



Some sow their winter-rye at the last hoeing 

 of Indian corn, and hoe it in ; and this Dr. 

 Deane observed was a good practice when it is 

 sown on flat laud, or on a rich or heavy soil, 

 where grain is apt to suffer by the frost of win- 

 ter. P"or the plants of r\e will be mostly on 

 the corn liills, and so escape injury from frost : 

 at least they will most commonly escape, or so 

 many of them as are necessary to give a good 

 crop. The plants that a-e killed will be those 

 in the low spaces betwixt the hill-. 



Rye is not only a proper crop on land which 

 is too poor to produce a good crop of wheat, 

 but it should be sown on a soil which is very 

 rich, in preference to wheat, because it is less 

 apt to grow to rank as to lodge, or blast, than 

 wheat." It is a very suitable crop for drained 

 bogs, in the first volume of Communication* 

 to the liritish Board of Agriculture, page 3H, 

 peaking of the culture of rye in Russia, it 



insomuch that some grounds, which would yield is observed that the produce from boggy lands 

 hut live bushels to the acre at first, have in drained and sowed with rye is upwards of forty 

 time produced a crop of fifteen bushels, with- bushels to one sovveu, and they generally use a 

 out the charge of manure, and Dr. Deane ob- much smaller quantity of seed in sowing such 



erved that he " had known the same spot pro- 

 duce twenty crops of this grain in succession, 

 excepting that it was planted with Indian corn 

 once or tvvice, to subdue the weeds, and that 

 the crops yearly increased instead of diminish- 

 !n<'-." But this, it is said, will not be the case, 

 unless the soil is naturally of a good quality, and 

 the stubble be completely turned under imme- 

 diately after reaping. If the ground is suffered 

 to remain after harvest without being ploughed 

 till the stubble is dried and shrivelled so that ii 

 possesses but little substance, and the seeds of 

 weeds have had time to ripen, the crops of 

 grain in each succeeding year will be diminish- 

 "(I, and the weeds v.'ill take an almost exclusive 

 possession of the soil. 



The Farmers' Assistant is opposed to the 

 raising of successive crops of rye, unless as 

 much as twenty-live bushels of this grain can 

 be yearly had from the acre ; as such an annual 

 product would probably alTord a clear profit to 

 ihe acre of half that numfier of bushels; and 

 such a profit, he observes, in some of the light 

 cr, and in some of the harder kinds of soils i: 

 not to be despised. The same writer recom- 

 mends sowing winter-rye and spnng-rye alter- 

 nately, in order that the ground might, every 

 other year, be enriched by the application of 

 gypsum. " The growing crop of rye," he say^ 

 " receives no benetit iVom the application oi 

 tJiis manure ; but it quickly covers the ground 

 with a tine sward of white clover; and as soon 

 as the ground is thus swarded, it is in good con- 

 dition for bearing any crop. Let the gyjjsum, 

 therefore, be sown in the spring, on the grow- 

 ing crop of winter-rye, and by the middle of' 

 October following, the ground will be covered 

 with white clover; turn fliis sward over in the 

 latter end of the fall, and in the spring sow a 

 crop of spring-rye ; and, as soon as tliis is taken 

 ofi, turn the ground over again for a crop of 

 winter rye ; and in the spring repeat the pro- 

 cess of manuring with gypsum as before, for a 

 crop of spring-ryo, and thus proceed with these 

 crops alternately." 



lands. Another proof that rye will bear very 

 plentiful manuring, may be adduced from a case 

 reported by Mr. L"IIommedieu, of ISTew York, 

 who observed, in substance, that a neighbor of 

 his manured twenty square rods of poor, grav- 

 elly, dry soil, with four thousand Menhaden fish, 

 and sowed it with rye, at the rate of about one 

 bushel to the acre. In the spring it was twice 

 successively eaten off, close to the ground, by 

 ,-hecp breaking in, after it had acquired a height 

 of nine inches the first time, and six inches the 

 latter, 'iiiese croppings, howevpr, nnly served 

 to make it grow thicker and stronger than be- 

 fore ; and when harvested it produced sixteen 

 bushels, or at the rate of one hundred and twen- 

 ty-eight bushels to the acre; giving to the own- 

 er, according to the calculation of Mr. L'Hom- 

 medieu, at the rate of eighty-live dollars to the 

 acre of clear profit.* 



In the Memoirs of the New York Board of 

 Agriculture, vol. i, page 82, it is said, " Rye 

 should be sowed the last week in August, or the 

 first week in September, at the rate of about 

 thirty-six quarts per acre, some say foity-eight 

 quarts. But if it is not sowed at that time, it 

 ought to be delayed until late in November, so 

 that it may not come up until spring. A. Wor- 

 thington had a good crop, which he sowed in a. 

 January snow storm. Rye raised on upland 

 makes much better flour than that which is 

 raised on low or damp land." 



Rye may be sown in autumn ' to great advan- 

 tage for green fodder for cattle and sheep, par- 

 ticularly the latter, in the spring. Ewes and 

 lambs will derive much benetit from it, at a 

 lime when little or no other green feed can be 

 procured. When it is meant for this purpose 

 it should not only be sowed early in autumn, 

 but should be sowed thicker than when it is in- 

 tended to stand for a crop of seed. Some say 



* Transactions of the N. York Agricultural Socii-ty, 

 part 3, pp. 35, 36. Tliis account may seem incredible, 

 but Mr. L'Horamediuu declared that it was attested to 

 by many credible ■wituetsesi 



