1885.J 



CHIPS. 



211 



this season, and so are others in that 

 region to wliom I liave sent trees to 

 be tested. — Robert Douglass. 



Origin of the Cereals. — Recent 

 numbei's of Naturcn contain interesting 

 papers by Professor Schlibeler, on the 

 original ha])itat of some of the cereals, 

 and the subsequent cultivation in the 

 Scandinavian lands and Iceland of bar- 

 ley and rye more especially. It would 

 appear that barley wa-s cultivated before 

 other cereals in Scandinavia, and that 

 the generic term " corn " was applied 

 among Noi-thmen to this grain only 

 from the oldest times, and that in the 

 Norwegian laws of the seventeenth 

 and eighteenth centuries wherevei- 

 reference was made to the " Kornskat " 

 — or standard by which land in the 

 Northern lands was, and still is, I'ated 

 in accordance with the corn it is capable 

 of yielding — the term was understood 

 to apply to barley. Proof of the high 

 latitude to which the cultivation was 

 carried in early ages is aftbrded by the 

 Egil's Saga, where mention is made of 

 a barn in Helgeland (65° N. lat.) used 

 for the storing of corn, and wliich was 

 so lai'ge that tables could be spread 

 within it for the enteitainment of 800 

 guests. In Iceland, barley was culti- 

 vated from the time of its coloniza- 

 tion, in 870, till the middle of the 

 foiu'teenth century, or, according to 

 Jon Storrason, as lately as 1400. From 

 that period down to our own times, 

 barley has not been grown in Iceland 

 with any systematic attention, the 

 islanders being dependent on the 

 home country for their supplies of corn. 

 In the last century, howevei', various 

 attemj^ts were made both by the 

 Danish Government and jjrivate in- 

 dividuals to obtain home-gi'own corn 

 in Iceland, and the success with which 

 these endeavours were attended gives 

 additional importance to the systematic 

 undertaking, which has been set on 

 foot by Dr. Schiibeler and others, 

 within the last three years, for the 

 introduction into the island of the 

 hardier cereals, vegetables, and fruits. 

 As many as 382 samples of seeds of 

 ornamental and useful plants, most of 

 which were collected from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Christiania, are now being 

 cultivated at Reykjavik, under the 

 special direction of the local govern- 

 ment doctor, Herr Schierbeck, who 

 succeeded in 1883 in cutting barley 

 ninety-eight days after the sowing of 

 the seed, which had come from Alten 



(70° N. lat.). And here it may be 

 observed that this seems the polar 

 limit in Norway for ai\ything like 

 good barley crops. The seed is gene- 

 rally sown at the end of May, and in 

 favourable seasons it may be cut at the 

 end of Augu.st ; the gi'owth of the 

 stalk being often 2i inclies in twenty- 

 four hours. North of 60° or 61°, barley 

 cannot be successfully grown in Norway 

 at more than from 1800 to 2000 feet 

 above the sea-level. In Sweden, the 

 polar limit is about 68° or 66° ; but 

 even there, as in Finland, night-frosts 

 prove very destructi\'e to the young 

 barley. In some of the fjeld valleys 

 of Norway, on the other hand, barley 

 may, in favourable seasons, be cut eight 

 or nine weeks after its sowing, and thus 

 two crops may be reaped in one sum- 

 mer. According even to a tradition 

 current in Thelemarken, a farm there 

 owes its name Triset to the three crops 

 reaped in the land in one year ! Rye 

 early came into use as a breadstuff in 

 Scandinavia ; and in 1490 the Nor- 

 wegian Council of State issued an ordi- 

 nance, making it obligatory on every 

 peasant to lay down a certain proportion 

 of his land in rye. In Norway, the 

 polar limit of summer lye is about 69°, 

 and that of winter rye about 61° ; but 

 in Sweden it has been carried along 

 the coast as far north as 65°. The 

 summer rye crops are generally sown 

 and fit for cutting about the same time 

 as barley, although occasionally in 

 Southern Norway less than ninety 

 days are required for their full 

 maturity. — Nature. 



AYhy certain Kinds of Tiuber 

 prevail in certain localities. — 

 During the past two years my work 

 has been on and about the Wabash 

 river banks and its bottoms (flooded 

 plains), and I have discovered why it 

 is that in some pai-ts of these bottoms 

 one kind of timber, as sycamore, will 

 take complete possession of a few acres, 

 while at, or near by, the cotton- wood will 

 prevail almost to the exclusion of every- 

 thing else, and at other places the soft 

 or water maple will do likewise, and 

 still at another the water elm will 

 monojiolize all the space on which a 

 grown tree can stand for several acres. 



It comes about in this way : The 

 balls of the sycamore, after undergoing 

 the winter's freeze, are dissolved so 

 that the separate needle-like or more 

 properly pin-like seeds (as the outer 

 end has the germ of the root, and 



