CLASS OF SOILS SUITABLE. 173 



rye will grow on the poorest description of soils, it of 

 course is more productive on soils of better quality, and 

 may be cultivated successfully on soils of the class of 

 loams, provided they do not contain too large a proportion 

 of clay. It also is said to be cultivated with success on 

 soils in which lime is either entirely absent, or exists in 

 too small proportions to be suitable for either of the other 

 cereals. This appears to be an erroneous statement, as 

 our analyses show us (p. 184) that rye requires lime fully 

 as much as either of them. It must be taken in a very 

 modified sense ; and then probably the difference between 

 the mechanical action of lime in the soil, as distinguished 

 from its chemical action, in relation to the growth of 

 different plants, may account for the power which rye 

 may possess of thriving in soils containing a minimum 

 amount of that substance. Rye also seems to thrive very 

 well on reclaimed peat or moorlands, and has been recom- 

 mended as a good preparation for subsequent tillage crops. 

 Belonging to the same botanical order as wheat, and 

 resembling it very much in its general requirements, its 

 proper place in the rotation is the same as that which 

 would be assigned to wheat. On light gravelly soils it 

 might be cultivated as a substitute for wheat, and on 

 stronger soils of a loamy character it might alternate 

 with wheat in the rotation, or replace either of the 

 other straw crops barley or oats. These, however, 

 being generally sown in the spring, would not proba- 

 bly so conveniently be replaced by the rye as a wheat 

 crop could. 



On the Continent the practice is, in many districts, to 

 sow it after wheat, if the soil is at all suitable for the latter. 

 In some places, indeed, two crops of rye are taken conse- 

 cutively a crop of the spring variety succeeding a crop 

 sown in the autumn, the first being harvested sufficiently 

 early to enable the farmer to take an intermediate crop of 



