PURPOSES OF CULTIVATION. 175 



diseases to which the other cereals are liable. 1 It is sub- 

 ject, however, to one disease, called " ergot/' which is 

 rarely met with in the other cereals, but seems to confine 

 itself principally to rye and various of the common grasses. 

 For this no remedy appears to have been yet discovered. 



Rye is cultivated largely as a green or fodder crop, as 

 well as for its seeds as a grain crop. In this case it may 

 be sown advantageously on a stronger class of soils, as the 

 object is to obtain abundance of herbage. A larger 

 quantity of seed is usually sown, and those varieties are 

 selected which have the property of tillering to the great- 

 est extent. On the Continent, in districts where but few 

 cattle are kept, or where manures are difficult to be ob- 

 tained, they frequently sow it for the purpose of ploughing 

 in as a manure. For this purpose it is always sown broad- 

 cast, as thick on the ground as possible, and a roller passed 

 over it so as to bruise and break it before being ploughed 

 in. This not only makes neater work, but greatly assists 

 its decomposition in the soil. 



In the northern parts of this country a practice of very 

 ancient date still exists, of sowing rye mixed with wheat 

 when the land is supposed to be hardly in condition to 

 produce a good crop of wheat by itself. It is thought by 

 this practice to make certain of a grain crop, as, if the 

 wheat should fail, the rye would in all probability be suffi- 

 cient to cover the ground. This mixed crop is locally 

 termed " meslin," from the old Norman-French "mesle" 

 (mele) mixed. The proportions of the mixture vary from 

 one-fourth to three-fourths of rye, according to the fancy 

 of the individual grower ; and it is said that " when wheat 

 and rye are grown mixed in this manner, the grains of each 



1 Steeping, however, can do no harm, while it may be the means of destroy- 

 ing any germs of disease that may exist, and also of stopping the germinative 

 powers of injured or broken grain, which always produce sickly debilitated 

 plants. 



