Soiling.—Rye has often been employed as a soiling crop for feeding in the green state, and occasionally it has been cured into hay. Its advan tage lies in the fact that it will furnish a con siderable amount of green food earlier in the spring than any other forage plant and before the pasture grasses are available.
While green rye is exceedingly laxative, it is generally reported to be satisfactory for milk production. One objection to its use lies in the comparatively short period during which it is available. Before heading, the dry matter per acre is too small to amount to much, and as soon as the grain begins to form the straw becomes hard, woody and unpalatable. Probably ten or twelve days in late April or early May, according to latitude, will cover the period during which it is in really good condition for green forage. When a system of soiling is followed, rye may be suc ceeded in turn by wheat, clover, peas and oats and corn. However, a silo full of first-class, well-ma tured corn silage will usually offer the happiest solution to the problem of summer feeding.
Cover-erop and green-manure.—Rye is used as a cover-crop and for green-manuring. While not a nitrogen-gathering plant, it is perhaps one of the best for producing organic matter on soils of low fertility. When plowed under to be followed with a crop of corn, it should not be allowed to become too mature, for the exhaustion of the soil moisture by the rye before plowing, and the subsequent cut ting off of the capillary movement of the soil water by a mat of vegetable material which decays very slowly, may work serious injury to the succeeding crop, especially if the summer proves to be one of deficient rainfall.
Straw.—Rye as a crop is unique in one respect, that is, in the East the straw is commonly about equal to the grain in value. This is preeminently the straw which is sought for bedding by fastidi ous horsemen, and the outlet for this purpose is very large. Until a score of years ago, it was very largely used in the making of a coarse brown paper for grocers, and for strawboard. Columbia county, in New York state, was once the center of a great rye-growing and paper-making industry. The crop is still very largely grown, but the mills have gone since the trade has changed to wood-pulp manila papers. The straw is also widely used in packing furniture and nursery stock, in making straw goods and in various other industrial.
Flour.—Rye flour carries some of its protein in the form of gluten, and hence, unlike maize, makes a light, porous, but rather dark-colored bread. The American demand for the flour is comparatively small. A century ago, with corn, it entered largely into the dietary of the New England states.
Rye flour is now made by the roller process simi lar to the methods employed in wheat milling. A few mills in the East make this their specialty. All the milling waste ordinarily goes together into one feed, which contains less protein and ash than wheat-mill products and sells at a lower price. It
is often wise to purchase it for swine-feeding.
Liquors.—Some rye is used in the production of alcoholic liquors, but the quantity thus utilized is relatively small. The distillers' refuse from rye is not so rich in protein and fat as from corn.
Enemies.
Insects. —Rye has no very specific insect or fun gous enemies. The chinch-bug (Iilissus leueopterus) will feed on it, and the Hessian fly (Ceeidompia destructor) has been reported to infest it in New York. The former is difficult to combat. All rubbish near infested areas should be destroyed and infested grass- fields should be burned over. Grass strips may be planted around the rye-field and turned under when infested with the insects. Crop rota tion helps in a measure. Migrations may be pre vented and large numbers killed by means of deep trenches or tar strips (page 42). The Hessian fly is controlled by planting resistant varieties, late seeding, burning the stubble after harvest, and sowing a small strip of wheat early for a trap-crop, to be plowed under when infested.
Diseases.—Rye also suffers from at least two kinds of rusts,— one a black rust of the stems and the other a reddish or orange rust of the leaves. These fungi are important economically, because they not only cause shrinkage and light weight in the grain, but they discolor the straw as well. Burning infested stubble and prac ticing crop rotation are the sug gested remedies.
Smut sometimes attacks rye. It may be treated as for oats, which see.
An interesting disease, which is not confined to rye, however, is ergot (Clavieeps purpurea) or spurred rye (Fig. 801), due to a fungus which attacks the rye grains and causes them to become greatly enlarged with a character istic appearance. Ergot is impor tant from a physiological stand point. As a medicine it has long been used in obstetrics, and when fed to animals it has sometimes caused abortion and also gangrene of the extremities. Wide-spread disease and trouble have been reported from its presence in rye used as human food in Europe.
Ergot occurs on the seeds of vari ous grasses and wheat as well, but it does not cause the grains of wheat to enlarge, and hence it is less conspicuous. It is said to be very common on rye in Germany, France and Spain, and is frequently reported from Iowa and Nebraska, but it is not usual in the rye districts of New York and New Jersey. The remedy lies in not using infested rye as seed and in not sowing rye on land where ergot rye has grown for two or three years previously.
Literature.
Hunt, The Cereals in America, Orange Judd Company ; Henry, Feeds and Feeding, pp. 132-133, published by the author, Madison, Wisconsin ; Roberts, Fertility of the Land, p. 116, Macmillan Company ; Wilcox and Smith, Farmer's Cyclopedia of Agriculture, Orange Judd Company ; Pennsyl vania Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 52; Yearbooks, United States Department of Agriculture, Statistical Tables.