178 
St. John's-day Rye. 
kinds of stock still eat nearly the whole of it, with scarce any waste, so 
that it has now been twenty-two days in use, and I expect that they will 
eat it freely some days longer: thus, you see, extending its eatable state 
nearly to a month. If I had possessed a greater breadth of this crop in 
the present season, I should have begun a week earlier, not waiting till 
it had attained the height of 3 feet. 
" The ground which bore this had a dressing of dung just before 
sowing. It succeeded wheat, cut green into stable ; but your calcareous 
grit detritus is a far more favourable soil for rye than our chalk. 
" This plant, and, I believe, this variety, proved fatal to hundreds of 
our brave men on the sandy plains of Belgmm, two days before the battle 
of AVaterloo. They marched through fields of it higher than their 
heads. The glittering points of their bayonets marked the track of their 
march to the enemy's artillery, which was on an eminence, while the 
rye being higher than their heads they could see no enemy, and knew 
not whither to direct their fire." 
Mr. Taunton having presented me with some seed of this 
rye, it was sown in the course of July, 1843, on some poor 
moory soil without manure, was fed off in the autumn, and 
again in the spring, yet produced on little more than a quarter 
of an acre, 13 bushels of seed. That seed was sown again last 
year in August as soon as harvested : it produced on a sandy loam 
very good feed in the autumn, and in this backward spring it 
realised Mr. Taunton's description, and established its character 
here by covering 4 or 5 acres with a thick coat of herbage, in which 
the lambs were browsing breast high, while there was little or no 
other feed in the neighbourhood. I find, too, in the late Mr. 
Rham's Dictionary of the Farm, a yet more favourable account 
of it. Under the article Rye in that convenient little book, our 
lamented colleague observes : " There is a variety of rye mentioned 
by continental authors by the name of St. John's-day rye, because 
it grows so rapidly that if sown about St. John's day it will be fit 
to mow green by the middle of September ; and in favourable 
seasons may be fed off again in November without preventing its 
giving ample feed in spring, and a good crop of grain at the 
next harvest. It might be advantageous to introduce this variety 
into England if it be not already known." On the other hand, 
it is right to state that, when our seedsman Mr. Gibbs inquired 
respecting it in its native country, he was informed that its 
cultivation was not spreading in Belgium. But the reason as- 
signed was its inferiority to the common rye in yield of seed ; 
and this objection, though valid in countries where ryebread is 
eaten, will not apply where, as in England, rye is intended 
principally for green fodder. Although then, as I said, my trial 
of the St. John's-day rye is incomplete, and though it has not 
been sown here as yet on its peculiar day, it has evidently 
two advantages over the common rye. It tillers so much as to 
