On the St. Johtis-Daif Rye. 
347 
become dead, is abundant and of low value; while in the spring, 
in our climate, green food is excessively scarce and valuable. It 
would not be too much to sav that the same weight of green-meat 
which in October or November would be worth 1/., in the fol- 
lowing March would be worth 3/. Now this rye-plant ought, 
still less than any other sort of herbage, to be sacrificed to au- 
tumnal pasturage, by reason of a distinguishing peculiarity which 
it possesses, and which remarkably contrasts with some other 
crops : e. g., if you sow winter barley, you may observe that there 
are never, throughout the autumn and winter, above three or 
four healthy root-leaves at once existing on the plant. So fast 
as a fifth leaf makes its appearance, the first, and perhaps the 
second, turns yellow, and dies away — they have discharged their 
functions, and are gone : consequently there is little waste in re- 
peatedly feeding off winter barley, at intervals of a few weeks, 
during the winter and early spring, for if the sheep did not con- 
sume the foliage, it would spontaneously perish ; and to make 
winter barley a useful crop for this purpose, it is only necessary that 
there should be a considerable breadth of it in cultivation, for in- 
asmuch as there is never a large quantity of herbage on it at any 
one time, if the space sown therewith be small, it is not worth 
while to remove a flock of sheep to it. In respect of sweetness 
and nutritive quality, winter barley is a very desirable food for 
sheep. 
The St. John's-day rye, however, has a widely different habit. 
The root-leaves neither die away in the same degree as those of 
the barley, nor are materially injured by the frost; and so soon 
as the influence of the vernal sun returns to the earth, the young 
leaves, under the shelter of these old leaves, shoot up among 
them, and attain nearly the same height as their nurses, regard- 
less of the north-easterly winds ; and the mixture of the old and 
young leaves furnishes not only a more bulky, but a heartier and 
safer meal for a sheep than the tender young shoots alone would 
do, for the earliest shoots of almost every sort of herbage often 
have too aperient a quality ; while, if there had been no old leaves 
remaining, but if these new leaves had to rise into the cold air 
from the naked ground, they would not at that time venture to 
put out a shoot. This crop realizes, in an eminent degree, the 
benefits contemplated by the late Arthur Young, in strongly re- 
commending the farmer to preserve the old fog, or after-grass, of 
pasture fields, untouched through the winter, for the food of ewes 
and lambs in spring. You not only have the foliage you had in 
November, at a time when its specific value is doubled or trebled, 
but you have its bulk doubled also. There may, indeed, be cases 
when an early sowing, combined with very rich or highly 
manured ground, or a soil fully stocked with charlock, may pro- 
VOL. VII. 2 B 
