25 AUGUST 1928, Page 12

* * * * FOOD AND FARMERS.

One small change in the feeding habits of our population is beginning to bring about an equally small change in agri- culture. More people are eating rye, in biscuit form, if not yet as bread. Now, rye, which is grown over large tracts of Germany, will flourish on much poorer soils than wheat, barley, or oats ; and in general is less sensitive to freaks of weather. The straw is.the toughest of all the straws and has a certain value for the making of mats to put over frames and protect plants. Supposing that the fashion for rye as food were further expanded—and it makes.a very wholesome food —it might pay once again to put under the plough some of the thin soils now going rapidly out of cultivation : already the cultivation of the crop is worth more consideration than it has received.