RYE AS A SOILING CROP.

Temuka Leader, Issue 922, 25 February 1882, Page 3

RYE AS A SOILING CROP.

By Henry Stewart. For soiling or for pasturage, rye will be found the most valuable nop of the season. It is cheaper than wheat, and is far better as fodder, and is ready for use earlier. It is productive of milk if it is cut betore it is hard and dry, and the surplus, if cut before the grain is formed makes excellent hay It will make a good crop of fodder upon poor soil, an 1 on the account is especially adapted for the beginning of a course of improvement of a poor farmer. But there are some points in regard to its culture and u«3P upon which erroneous ideas are current. In the first place, there needs to be a thicker seeding than is usual when the crop is grown for graiu, and the poorer the soil the thicker should be the seeding up to four or five bushels per acre. I have sown all the way from two and one-half to five-bushels to the acre and three and one-half or four have given the best yield of the best fodder, which is all the better the finer it is. Thick seeding gives a thin, slender, tall leafy growth, which is the best for both fod er and hay.

The most disappointing mistake in regard to tins crop is that it can be cut several times in a season. This is altogether out of the question. The habit of growth of rye is to throw out a bunch of radical leaves, or imperfect stalks with spreading leaves in the fall. If the season is warm and long continued the roots spread by throwing out new seta of similar leaves until the ground is completely covered as with a sod ; if the seed has been swn early and the wa'm wen. ther continue, the stalks may throw up from the centre of each an ear bearing stem, the tar of which may or may not emerge from the sheHth. In eitlier case, to cut (his or permit it to be grazed off, destroys the ear and the plant must throw up new off-shoots from the roots or the crop of grain must be destroyed, so that

I a very vigorous crop heeds to be pastured ! down in the fa-L not so much to prevent ; smothering in the winter, as some think, > but to its check luxuriance and succulence which the growth of seed stalks in the. fall, and which cause it to succumb to the frost or to rot under the close covering of a deep, wet snow. Iu the spring the plants do not tiller so much ns in the fall uolesa wh©n very forward and vigorous they are pastured down and checked somewhat; but they soon throw up the ear shoot. If the crop is cue this must be done before the sheath has come into range with the scythe, otherwise the embryo ear is cut oft and the crop is confined to those stalks which have so far been delayed in their growth by the vigour of the leading ones At any rate, then the cutting must be done 1 while the herbage is small and before the main Bhoots have grown to a length of three inches, else the Second growth will be very light. The first cutting of rye, in fact, will be so light as to be hardly worth taking, and if ii is worth it the second growth will be very light. I have grown rye for soiling more or less for fifteen years, and have never yet found,, it to yield a double cutting worth the labor ; rf the first is good fo<- anything the socoud i« next to worthless ; and if the Becond is to be good, the first must be taken so early as to be of little value. When the heads appear the cutting of rye may begin and last until it is in full. blossom, when it should be cut and made into hay. At this time, which will be in June, the clover and early grass will be ready for cutting and the rye will be hard and woody. Rye has often disappointed those who have grown it for soiling, because it has been cut too late ; fur as soon as it gets tough and hard it is a poor milk ptodncing food ; but when it is young it is different. Aa soon as the blossoms appear it should be cut and not left a day 'onger.— Rural New Yorker.