352 
On the St. Johns-Day Rye. 
year the seed to be sown would contain eleven times as much of 
brome as of rye. There is no need, therefore, to resort to an 
unheard of and unproved process of nature, the metamorphosis of 
one species of plant into another, in order to account for the exu- 
berant growth of droke and brome grasses among crops, in prepa- 
ration for which the farmer believed he had sown only rye ; since 
a very moderate degree of slovenliness in the grower and thresher 
of the seed of the St. John's-day rye will account for the variation 
in the crop, without recurring to any preternatural or newly dis- 
covered powers. It is not dignus vindice nodus. 
It will be seen, by the accompanying specimens of Lolium te- 
mulentum, Bromus secalinus, and St. John's-day rye, how little 
difference there is in size and specific gravity between the one 
seed and the other. 
The writer is fully persuaded, and wishes strongly to inculcate, 
that the value of this fodder makes it worth the farmer's while to 
take the requisite pains for obtaining a clean sample of the seed 
of the St, John's-day rye, which may be thus effected : — Sow a 
small portion of land with it in drills, at eighteen inches or two 
feet asunder, hoe the crop carefully between the rows, and hand- 
weed the rows as often as it is necessary. Be not tempted by the 
beauty and apparent excellence of the intruders to preserve them 
till the harvest. After the rye is in blossom, there will be seen 
coming up among it the Bromus secalinus in numerous tufts, 
with so broad a blade, (much broader than that of the rye,) of so 
deep and beautiful a green colour, with culms so bulky and so 
juicy, that the cultivator is tempted to spare them, as more beau- 
tiful and valuable than the rye itself. Nor is the author disposed 
to affirm that this grass, which cattle eat freely among the rye, 
may not be worth cultivating in the alternate husbandry by itself, 
either for hay or soiling ; but he is not aware that the experiment 
has been made. If made, this brome-grass would come in as a 
green crop, to succeed the St. John's-day rye. But suffice it 
here to say, this brome-grass is not the St. John's-day rye ; and, 
whatever plant a good farmer cultivates, it is expedient that he 
should sow clean seed, in order to test truly the value of the sub- 
ject. If it be not worth raising alone, and for its own sake, let 
him reject it, and grow something better. 
On the 28th of May, 1846, the writer of these remarks having 
an acre and a half of St. John's-day rye then nearly in full blos- 
som, and therefore, as he believed, at nearly its fullest bulk and 
excellence, caused one square rod of it to be mowed, and the pro- 
duce to be weighed in its green state, when the weight was found 
to be 121 lbs. avoirdupois, being at the rate of 8 tons, 12 cwt. 
3 quarters, and 12 lbs. of green-meat per acre. The same pro- 
duce of one rod being, when dry, again weiglied, was found still 
to weigh 40 lbs., being after the rate of 2^ tons per acre, which it 
