On the St. Johns-Day Rye. 
339 
large proportion of the food of the English peasantry, particularly 
in the north, as it still does in the northern parts of Europe. 
The author is not aware of the time when rye was first intro- 
duced into Great Britain. But it appears by Spelinan's Glossary, 
title ' Firma,' who mentions rents reserved in rye at a very early 
period of our history, to have been long established in this 
country ; Ray, in 1660, and Worlidge, some years earlier, enume- 
rate it among the plants then currently cultivated in Great Britain, 
and the latter assigns to it the due rank as a bread-stuff, next to 
wheat. But in this island it had been, even before the recom- 
mendation of it published in the Society's Journal, vol. ii. p. 217, 
and is now, principally cultivated to furnish early spring-feed for 
ewes and lambs, for milch-cows, and to be cut green, after it has 
thrown up its culm, for soiling horses in the stable. For the 
latter purpose, however, the common sort is but imperfectly 
fitted ; for in a very few days after it has put forth its culm, it 
becomes hard and sticky, and is rejected by the animals, and can 
no longer, without great waste, be applied to the desired purpose. 
The same variety is also used by unskilful persons to sow amongst 
winter tares or vetches, in order to support them, that they may 
not, by trailing on the ground, exclude the light and air, and be- 
come yellow, and lose their lower foliage. But it is ill suited to this 
end, because it grows so much faster than the vetches, that when 
the vetches are cut in blossom, the rye is become hard, and has 
ceased to be eatable, consequently is wasted. Moreover, it grows 
so much faster than the vetches, that it overtops, and if the pro- 
portion of rye be large, it by reason thereof shades and injures 
them. The proper grain to use for supporting winter vetches is 
wheat, and for this purpose the sturdiest varieties of wheat are 
the best. By a beautiful adaptation of the means to the end, 
wheat grows exactly as fast as the vetches do, and no faster, and 
has exactly the degree of stiffness requisite to support them ; and 
when they are to be consumed, the whole mass is eatable together, 
the wheat being the most nutritious and valuable part thereof. 
It is hoped this digression may be excused, for the sake of the 
useful and satisfactory practice which it inculcates. 
A custom long obtained in this country, as well as in others, 
of sowing wheat and rye together, which was called meslin or 
maslin, a Norman name signifying mixed corn, which seems to be- 
speak the antiquity of the custom ; it is called by the French mcteil. 
But this miscellany must have been attended with the inconveni- 
ence of the several parts of the crop ripening at an interval of 
many days ; and, where the land was good enough to bear the 
wheat in perfection, we may surmise that it would have been more 
profitable to have raised an entire crop of wheat than to have 
spoiled the sample by the admixture of rye. Worlidge condemns 
