AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 131 



is almost unknown. A correspordent informs me that he 

 has had thirty-five bushels of rye per English acre on land 

 that would not have produced twenty bushels of oats, in- 

 deed, oats, sown along side of the rye, upon the same field, 

 and on land as nearly as could be judged of the same quali- 

 ty, were scarcely worth the expense of reaping. On moor- 

 ish land, rye has been found a more certain crop than oats. 

 Mr. George Culley remarks that rye, like oats, will answer 

 in crude soils without lime, or calcareous manures, which 

 renders that crop peculiarly calculated for waste lands when 

 first brought into cultivation.' 



Lands which will produce tolerable crops of wheat had 

 better be cultivated for the purpose of raising wheat than 

 rye. And, if we may believe what English writers tell us 

 relative to this subject, the use of lime for manure will often 

 so far change the nature of a poor soil proper only for rye, 

 that wheat may be made its substitute. Mr. Marshall, in 

 his Rural EcotLomy of Yorkshire, says, ' Before the use of 

 lime was prevalent, much rye was grown on the lighter lands 

 upon the margin of the Vale, and in the Moorlands scarcely 

 any other crops than rye and oats were attempted. No*v, 

 rye is principally confined to the Moorland dales ; and even 

 there the alteration of soils by lime has been such that wheat 

 has become the more prevalent crop. 



' Nevertheless on light, sandy soils, rye is generally more 

 profitable than wheat, and the bread which is made from a 

 mixture of the two grains is here esteemed more wholesome 

 to people in general than that which is made from wheat 

 alone.' 



When rye is sown upon light land it ripens much earlier 

 than on a cold stiff ground, and it is said by some writers 

 that by continuing to sow on such a soil for two or three 

 years, it will be forwarded so much as to ripen a month ear- 

 lier than that which has been raised upon strong cold ground. 

 For this reason, those who sow their rye late will do well to 

 provide themselves with this early seed. 



Dr. Elliot informs, that if rye be sowed successively every 

 year upon the same land, both the crop and the land will be 

 greatly improved, insomuch that some grounds, which would 

 yield but five bushels to the acre at first, have in time pro- 

 duced a crop of fifteen bushels, without the charge of ma- 

 nure ; and Dr. Deane observed that he ' had known the same 

 spot produce twenty crops of this grain in succession, ex- 

 cepting that it was planted with Indian corn once or twice, 



