VARIETIES CULTIVATED. 171 



the winter rye. According to M. Seringue 1 this variety 

 is no other than the common rye, sown continuously at a 

 different period from the usual time of sowing it. When 

 sown in the month of June, it spreads out and produces a 

 large amount of leafy herbage. If the sowing, however, 

 is delayed until the usual period (October), it entirely 

 loses this character, and shows no difference from the 

 common rye. 



Russian resembles the St. John's Day variety in the 

 luxuriance of its growth; its straw, however, is longer 

 and stouter, growing under favourable conditions to the 

 height of 8 feet; and the grains are larger and better 

 filled. At the same time it has not the property of tiller- 

 ing to the same extent: in this it more resembles the 

 common rye. This probably is the rye which Von Mid- 

 dendorf spoke of as having seen growing so luxuriantly 

 within the Arctic circle beyond the Yatusk. 



Giant, or Tyrolese, appears very much to resemble the 

 Russian in its luxuriance and vigorous habit of growth. 

 It is ten or twelve days earlier than the common rye, and 

 on good soils is generally to be preferred to it. On poor 

 soils the common is usually the more productive. 2 



This brief description must suffice here ; the different 

 varieties of rye, and their agricultural values and habits 

 of growth, will be found more fully described in a paper 

 in the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, vol. vii. 

 p. 334, by Mr. Taunton; and in vol. vi. p. 177 and 179, 

 some valuable practical information is also given in refer- 

 ence to the St. John's Day variety. 



Rye is essentially the bread-grain of the light and poor 

 descriptions of soil, while wheat is that of the heavy and 



1 Annales de la Societe <T Agriculture de Lyons, 1845. xxxi. des proces- 

 vcrbaux. 



- At the Chester Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1858.. a so-called 

 new variety of Giant Rye was exhibited and offered for sale, which was not 

 rye at all, but a fine species of wheat, the Triticum polonicum. 



