THE RYE CROP. 



RYE certainly occupies the last place on the list of our 

 cereal crops, both as regards the importance of the uses to 

 which it is applied, and also the surface area occupied by 

 its cultivation. In former times it occupied a very different 

 position in this country ; 1 it was held in high estimation 

 as a bread -corn, either by itself or mixed with wheat or 

 barley; and it was also looked upon as the most advan- 

 tageous crop for the great extent of light and sandy soils 

 which existed in the country, and which of course, being 

 more easily worked than the heavier and clay soils, were 

 then used for tillage purposes, while the others were left un- 

 touched in their natural pasture. This condition of things 

 happily exists no longer at home. Improved mechanical 

 appliances give us easy mastery over the most intrac- 

 table clays the light soils under the four-course system 

 are enriched by manures and root crops, and consolidated 

 by pasturage by sheep and cattle and under a generally 

 improved system of farming, wheat and barley now cover 

 the acres which before were considered only capable of 

 producing scanty crops of rye. On the Continent, how- 

 ever, rye still holds a very important position ; in some 



1 Even so lately as 1760, Adam Smith tells us that it formed the general food 

 of one-seventh of the entire population. The arable land was at that period 

 thus occupied : 



Wheat, 3,700,000 acres. 



Eye, 880,000 



Barley, 730,000 



Oats, 623,000 



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