l8o4. On the Malt Tax. $1 



fucceed, owing to the above mentioned cniife, though jt was the 

 beft bear in Abcrdeenihire. The foil was too rich for bear, 



Gn the other hand, in the northern counties and Higliland dif- 

 tridls of Scotland, barley does not ^nfwer ; it requires a finer tilth, 

 — foil of a loofer texture, or more pulverized — is at an average 

 of feafons one fourth part lojiger on the ground than the bear, or 

 big, before it is ripened (being from 13 to 18 weeks, while bear 

 is fiom 10 to 14 wcek.^-, till it is cut down) and requires 

 a belter foil, and land in better order. Indeed the difference re- 

 quifite in moft feafons for the growth and ripening of barley, ren- 

 ders it impoflible to raife it to advantage in the northern coun- 

 ties, where the fummers are fiiort, and the harvells precarious. 

 Gn thefe accounts, bear, or big, mult in fuch places be preferred 

 to barley, as the furefl crop, tliough of, by far the lead value. 



Barley, compared to bear or big, is like autumn wheat compared 

 to that fown in fpring ; in a remarkably iine feafon, the diilererice 

 may not be great ; but on an average of feafons, the difference is 

 very coniiderable : A quarter of good barley in a bad feafon is fu- 

 perior to two quarters, and indeed fometimes fuperior to three 

 quarters of bad, or frofted bear. In general it may be faid with 

 truth, that if Scotch barley is to Englilh barley as 5 to 7, Scotch 

 bear, or big, is to Englifli barley orie to t'vco, and to Scotch bar- 

 ley nearly as two to three ; and it is as rcafonable to continue the 

 old proportion of taxes, which fubiifted for 77 years, on all male 

 made from Scotch bear or big, as it is to make a difference be- 

 twixt EngliQi and Scotch barley. Indeed it would have been 

 more prudent, for reafons to be afterwards mentioned, to have 

 continued the old proportion of taxes on all malt made in Scot- 

 land, whether from Englifli or Scotch barley, or from Scotch 

 bear, or big. 



In 3 refolution of a meetinor of landholders of the different 

 counties of Scotland, it is faid, * As to bear, or big, the growth of 



* the northern counties of Scotland, which is flill more inferior in 



* quality than the" barley, there are not fuHicient data as yet ob- 



* tained to afcertain its proportion in the fcale.' Is there not a 

 botanical difference, and that a wide one, between the t^vo raved 

 and iha four or six rowed plant ? Is not the fize of each indivi- 

 dual grain, (which contains only 10,000 grains in an avoirdupois 

 pound, as in Englifli, or from 11 to i2,oco grains, as in Scotch 

 barley J, widely different from the fize of bear, or big, which at 

 beft contains 14,000 grains, at a medium 17,000, and fometimes 

 above 21,000 in the pound avoirdupois! Are not the greater 

 weight of the bufhel of Scotch barley, the more equal ripening of 

 the champaign fields of the Lowlands, the comparatively less 

 injury done to this barley in the procefs of malting, the greater 

 -quantity of faccharinc, or extractive matter in its malt, and the 

 greater aptitude to fermentation in its worts and waili, and alfo 



the 



