THE RYE CROP. 



turnips, and still get the land in order for sowing in the 

 spring again. These are both clearly bad and exhausting 

 practices; still they have their followers. In Belgium it 

 both precedes and succeeds to a root crop. 



The same preparation of the soil is required as for the 

 other cereals; but, being grown generally only on light 

 soils, this is achieved usually without much labour. In 

 all cases it is desirable to get in the seed as early as pos- 

 sible a full month, for instance, earlier than wheat, as it 

 is important that the roots of the plant and the rudiment 

 of the ear should be well formed before the frosts of winter. 

 If these points are secured, the plant passes through the 

 winter without injury; if, by being sown too late, a suffi- 

 cient growth has not been obtained before the winter, the 

 plant is checked, and makes but little progress, and comes 

 to harvest about the same time as that sown in the spring. 

 The mode of sowing is the same as has been already de- 

 scribed by broadcast or by the drill; and the same quanti- 

 ties of seed may be used as it is customary to use in wheat 

 sowing. Less, of course, is required for the autumn than 

 for the spring sown, and less seed would be required for 

 those varieties which tiller well, as the St. John's Day Rye, 

 than for those (the Russian Rye, for instance) which, though 

 bolder in their growth, have not the same tillering pro- 

 perties. Care should be taken in the selection of seed, 

 that it be of good quality, and true to the particular variety 

 it professes to be. In some districts the straw of some 

 varieties is nearly as valuable as the grain; and great in- 

 convenience might occur in the farm arrangements, both 

 as to cropping and labour, by sowing a late instead of an 

 early variety, and thus having your crop on the ground a 

 fortnight later than you had calculated upon. 



It is not the custom, either in this country or on the 

 Continent, to steep the seed previous to sowing, as rye 

 does not appear to be subject to either of the fungoid 



