On the St. JohrCs-Day Rye. 
3.37 
the finest bread in the world, and the g^rain must be first passed 
through a coarsely-set mill to disengage the grain from the 
glumes, before the grain can be put into the mill which is to 
reduce it to flour, for no flail can get out the grain. Further, 
Pliny says that the Olyra is peculiar to Egypt, Syria, Cilicia, 
Asia, and Greece, which certainly cannot be predicated of rve ; 
and Matthiolus, in the 16th century, laments that the Olyra was 
then nowhere cultivated in Italy. The circumstance that rye is 
found to thrive in the coldest regions, strengthens the doubt 
whether the Olyra grown in the hot plains of Egypt, and the 
Zea cultivated in Palestine, were either of them rve. 
There are several plants which botanical writers have at various 
times arranged as species of the genus Rye, but most of them are 
now placed under the genus Triticum or that of Agropvrum. 
TheTe is a rve called perennial rye, which, according to Afessrs. 
Lawson, the erudite authors of the 'Agriculturist's Manual' (p. 
33), who have let nothing escape their notice, is a variety of the 
Secale fragile mentioned below. This plant the author has 
heretofore had in his experiment-ground, and has thought, from 
its precocious habit, that it deserved attention, as promising early 
feed ; nor did he find that it was backward or penurious in 
ripening its seed ; but in effecting a change of residence, the 
plant was neglected and lost, and the author has nothing further 
to report on it, except to recommend it to the notice of other expe- 
rimental farmers. The species Secale fragile, said by Loudon to 
have been introduced about 1816 from Tauria, and Secale 
Orientale, a biennial, introduced from the Levant in 1807, ap- 
pear to be still retained as species under the denomination of rye. 
But with these the author is not acquainted. For thirty years 
past has the author been vehemently desirous to obtain the rye of 
Astracan, reported by some writers to be the most beautiful 
grain that grows in the world, but all his endeavours have been 
fruitless; nor has he even been successful in ascertaining whether 
it be a real rye, and, if so, whether it be a species, or only a fine 
variety of Secale cereale ; or whether it be, as some have sur- 
mised, merely the Polish wheat, Triticum Polonicum, a very re- 
markable and beautiful grain, which the writer has heretofore 
raised and admired. He therefore proceeds to treat of the Secale 
cereale, of which species there are several varieties: — 1st. A 
spring rye, Secale cereale vernum. This the intelligent author 
of ' Le Bon Jardinier' for 1844 describes as having a stalk less 
long and more slender than that of the autumnal rye — a grain 
rather smaller, but heavy and excellent in quality ; and says that 
the cultivation of this cereal has much spread in France within a 
few years past, and that it is sown in March. M. Vilmorin ob- 
tained from Germany a variety thereof, under the name of Great 
