Wikipedia 
The Christian major rogation replaced a pagan Roman procession known as Robigalia, at which a dog was sacrificed to propitiate Robigus, the deity of agricultural disease. The practitioners observing Robigalia asked Robigus for protection of their crops from wheat-rust.
The minor Rogation days were introduced around AD 470 by Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, and eventually adopted elsewhere. Their observance was ordered by the Council of Orléans in 511, and though the practice was spreading in Gaul during the 7th century, it was not officially adopted into the Roman rite until the reign of Pope Leo III (died 816).
The faithful typically observed the Rogation days by fasting and abstinence in preparation to celebrate the Ascension, and farmers often had their crops blessed by a priest at this time. Violet vestments are worn at the rogation litany and its associated Mass, regardless of what colour is worn at the ordinary liturgies of the day.
A common feature of Rogation days in former times was the ceremony of beating the bounds, in which a procession of parishioners, led by the minister, churchwarden, and choirboys, would proceed around the boundary of their parish and pray for its protection in the forthcoming year. This was also known in the northern parts of England as 'Gang-day' or 'gan week', after the old English name for going or walking. This was also a feature of the original Roman festival, when revellers would walk to a grove five miles from the city to perform their rites.
Thomas Johnson (1633), speaking of the birch tree, mentions another name: Cross-week.
"It serveth well to the decking up of houses and banquetting-rooms,
for places of pleasure, and for beautifying of streets
in the Crosse or Gang Week, and such like."
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How many Catholics are aware of Rogationtide?
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