On the St. Johns-Day Rijc. 
341 
rye, the culture of which the author pursued to some extent. 
He found it afforded a \ohy and stiff straw, and a large, hand- 
some, and heavy grain, but though sown in summer, it did not 
tiller out more than our common English rye ; wherefore, seeing 
that it did not further his object of obtaining abundance of green- 
meat, he abandoned the cultivation of it. It very nearly resembled 
the large Tyrolese rye hereinafter mentioned. 
Romer and Schultes, in their edition of Linnaeus, advert to a 
variety of rye called Compositum, which name seems to indicate 
that the spike grows clustered like Composite, or Smyrna, other- 
wise Egyptian wheat ; with this variety the author is unac- 
quainted. 
The author obtained in the autumn of 1845, from Mr. Thomas 
Cooper, of Ardleigh Wick, near Colchester, Essex, an extremely 
valuable variety of rye, which Mr. Cooper called his Early broad- 
leaved rye. This, on the 3rd of September, 1845, the author 
drilled with pulverized manure on a piece of good, strong wheat- 
loam, which had been folded with sheep eating off winter vetches 
thereon, and had been repeatedly ploughed, dragged, harrowed, 
and couched, and was brought to a beautiful and fine tilth. On 
the same day, on similar and similarly prepared adjacent land, he 
drilled, 2ndly, common rye ; Srdly, Russian rye ; and 4thly, St. 
John's-day rye, that he might have an opportunity to compare 
the different varieties with each o*her, when all were sown under 
similar circumstances. From the observations detailed below re- 
specting Cooper's early broad-leaved rye, the author has inferred 
that this is the variety referred to by an eminent Essex farmer, 
Mr. Baker, of Writtle, in the paper wherewith he has favoured 
the Society in the sixth volume of their Journal, p. 179. 
But the variety of which it is the author's duty and intention 
principally to treat, and which, as he conceives, is the most 
valuable of all to the English farmer, is the Secale cereale mul- 
ticaule, called by the French Seigle multicaule, or Seigle de la 
St. Jean, the St. John's-day rye; touching which he finds the 
following testimonials. The late Rev. W. L. Rham, in his 
' Dictionary of the Farm,' p. 444, says : — 
" There is a variety of rye mentioned by continental authors by the 
name of Seigle de la St. Jean, or St. John's-day rye, because it grows 
so rapidly, that if sown about St. John's day (24th of June), it will be 
fit to mow by the middle of September, and, in favourable seasons, may 
be fed off again in Novenjber, 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. There is no doubt that there are varieties of the same kind of 
plants, which have a much more vigorous vegetation than those com- 
monly cultivated ; and the introduction of them where they are not 
