348 
On the St. Johri's-Day Rye. 
duce such a mass of autumnal foliage that it would in a long 
winter rot on the ground. In such a case it might be necessary 
to mow or feed it before winter, but that is an extreme case. 
You can only give the crop this long season, required for per- 
fecting its growth, by means of sowing it early. It is possible 
that even by sowing it as late as Christmas a crop of grain may 
be obtained, but probably a poor one ; and the same profusion 
of herbage must not be expected from such a late sowing as if it 
had been sown half a year sooner. If you sow a turnip at 
Michaelmas, you may possibly have a growth of puny leaves in 
the spring, but you will not have the noble bulb which you might 
have had if you had sown your turnips at Midsummer. In truth, 
the powers of reproducing from the same roots vary very mate- 
rially in different plants — not in perennials only, as in the lucern, 
which will rise to flower three or four times in the year — in the 
double-bearing sainfoin, which will flower and ripen its seed 
twice in the year — and in the common red clover, which will 
currently flower twice; and, as in the summer of 1846, occa- 
sionally three times in the year — in the beautiful Hordeum bul- 
bosum, which, if cut when in flower, raises its second crop of 
culms to perfection in the same summer — and, in the Italian rye- 
grass, which well ripens two crops of seed in the year, and if 
abundantly manured, as in Mr. Dickinson's case, produces many 
crops ; — but also in what are often called biennials, among which, 
perhaps, the wheat predominates, for I have known an excellent 
farmer, who had a small farm and abundant manure from a fully- 
stocked yard and stable, to mow his wheat-crop for stable food 
currently twice, and in one instance thrice in the summer, and 
to ripen a crop of the grain of wheat in each case — In many, 
or most instances, a good crop — but his fields were like a hot- 
bed, and if he had not mowed them, the wheat would liave been 
lodged and rotted on the ground. Wheat is, in truth, the most 
nutritive and the most productive,* though not the earliest, of all 
soiling crops ; and those few fortunate persons who complain 
that their land is too rich for wheat, would, if they were to culti- 
vate wheat thereon as a soiling crop, enjoy a most abundant and 
profitable return therefrom. But I do not believe that rye has 
the same exuberance of production, even under similar circum- 
stances. I have often seen wheat lodged to a vast extent of 
acres. I cannot call to mind that I ever saw a crop of rye, either 
of my own or of others, lying lodged. The culm of rye, though 
often much taller than that of wheat, appears usually capable of 
sustaining and carrying on to perfection all the nutritive matter 
that the roots can throw up into it. This circumstance, if my 
observation (which may, however, arise from having been princi- 
* Trilled, says Pliny, lib. 18, s. 21, nihil est fertilius. 
