130 THE COMPLETE FAHMER 



ha/e not the least doubt but it will succeed well where other 

 varieties have prospered, and have no hesitation in believing 

 it will be a valuable acquisition for many years to come to 

 the agricultural interests of our country ; which, aside from 

 selfish considerations, I most heartily reciprocate your views 

 in wishing to advance, believing this to be the chief corner- 

 stone of our happy republic. 



In the mean time, if this contains any thing which you 

 may think will subserve the interests of agriculture, you are 

 at liberty to publish the same. 



\ our obedient servant, 



PAYSON WILLIAMS. 



RYE. The farmer who has it in his power to drive his 

 busiixcss, instead of being driven by it, will do well to sow 

 his winter rye some time between the middle of August and 

 the middle of September. If it be sowed so early it will be 

 less apt to winter 'kill, will require less seed, the growth will 

 be stouter, and the produce greater, other things being equal, 

 than if the sowing was deferred till late in autumn. 



Some foreign writers on agriculture assure us that winter 

 rye and spring rye are of the same species ; and the Far- 

 mer's Assistant says ' there is but one kind of rye ; but this 

 may be made winter rye or spring rj'-e, by gradually habi- 

 tuating it to different times of sowing. Take winter rye, 

 for instance, and sow it later and later each fall, and it may 

 at length be sown in the spring, and become spring rye. 

 On the contrary, sow spring rye very late in the fall at first, 

 and you may gradually sow it earlier each year, until it may 

 be sown in May, and used the first season for pasture or 

 mowing, and then grown to perfection the second year.' 

 The same opinion is likewise expressed in Deane's New 

 England Farmer. 



Rye is capable of being cultivated on most kinds of land, 

 but the light sandy soils, where wheat will not thrive, are 

 the sorts of soil on which it will, generally speaking, be 

 found most profitable to raise this kind of produce. Sir 

 John Sinclair observes that ' this species of grain is not so 

 extensively cultivated in Scotland as it ought to be ; (for 

 weighty crops of it might be raised on soils of the most po- 

 rous and arid nature, and upon almost pure sand along the 

 sea-shore ;) and the winter sort, without which the people 

 living on the coasts of the Baitic could hardly be subsisted, 



