4S5
profitable crop. It is not, however, in much estimation, andthe quantity sown is so inconsiderable as hardly to merit no-tice * * * § .
Bye, though not commonly cultivated in Roxburghshire,is sometimes sown there on light soils, when first broken upfor improvement, and pays better than a crop of oats. Beinga smaller grain than wheat, less seed is requisite to the acre,and the produce often exceeds 18 to 24 bushels. Yet theculture is not by any means general, though it is not uncom-mon to sow it on single ridges around corn fields near dwell-ing-houses, to defend other crops from poultry, and to furnishthatch for their houses and ricks, for which its straw is ad-mirably adapted f.
Rye ought never to be sown in wet or strong soils, noreven on those of a sandy nature where the subsoil is reten-tive. Upon downs, links mid all soft lands which havebeen recently manured, this grain thrives in perfection; and ifonce covered in, will withstand an after degree of drought, thatwould destroy any other of the cereal graminae or culmiferousgrains. The several steps of its cultivation may be considered asnearly the same with those of wheat, except pickling, which itdoes not require. Rye may be sown either in autumn, win-ter, or spring; but the earlier sown fields are generally mostproductive. It may succeed cither summer fallow, clover, orturnips : even after oats, good crops have been raised §.
After these quotations respecting the excessively scanty cul-tivation of rye in a very few districts in Scotland , it would beimproper to enter into any analytical view of the way inwhich it is managed in its different stages, as has been donein respect to wheat; both because that would require to be
* Argyleshirc Report, p 99. f Roxburgh Report, p. 101.
t Very heavy crops of rye have been reaped in East Lothian , on !itiles or
grounds of blowing sand, on which no other grain crop would probably havegrown.
§ Brown’s Treatise on Rural Affairs.