508 On the Growth of Barley hy different Manures, 8fc. 



It was seen too, in the other fields, that mineral manures were 

 quite unavailing^ to give even moderate crops of barley, unless 

 there were available nitrogen nithin the soil. 



It may fairly be concluded, that a characteristic effect of alter- 

 nating the other crops with the barley, has been to leave more 

 available nitrogen from some source, within the reach of the roots 

 of the latter, than when either this same crop was grown con- 

 tinuously in succession, or when a number of successive turnip 

 crops were previously removed from the land. Barley then, like 

 wheat, requires characteristically what may be termed a nitro- 

 genous condition of soil. It cannot, however, under ordinary 

 circumstances, bear such large amounts of nitrogen supplied as 

 wheat ; though what it does require, from the habit of the 

 plant, and its usual limited period of growth, should be more 

 confined to the upper layers of soil. For these reasons, barley 

 may otten be taken with advantage after a previous white crop, 

 by a spring-dressing merely, of chiefly nitrogenous manure. In 

 such cases the direct addition of mineral manures, especially 

 those containing phosphates, will have a more striking effect than 

 upon the lointer-sown wheat. The effect of such mineral manures 

 is not only to increase the general growth, but to bring the crop 

 more rapidly to maturity. The more frequent alternative is, that 

 barley is taken after a root-crop, in part, or entirely, fed on the 

 land. The appropriateness of this course for barley rather 

 than for wheat, besides the advantage arising from the season of 

 the year at which the land is generally clear for the corn, rests 

 mainly on the fact, that the manure by folding, with the sub- 

 sequent light working of the land, is more confined to the super- 

 ficial layers of soil, in which comparatively, the roots of the barley 

 play more freely. 



A disadvantage of growing barley after the folding of sheep 

 on turnips is, that with high farming the land is apt to be thus 

 left in too high a condition for the crop to succeed well in the 

 average of seasons ; whilst, on the heavier lands, there is fre- 

 quently much injury done to the texture, rendering it difficult to 

 get the fine tilth so essential to the favourable growth of barley. 



Of direct portable manures for barley, Peruvian guano, or salts 

 of ammonia, or nitrate of soda — either of them with a small 

 quantity of superphosphate of lime — are the best. Kape-cake is 

 also a good manure for barley, but it is generally too high in 

 relative price. These manures, as well as purely mineral manures, 

 are most advantageously applied before, or at the time of sowing, 

 so as to be somewhat distributed through the surface soil by the 

 mechanical operations. As a mere top-dressing nitrate of soda 

 IS the best. Of the more exclusively nitrogenous manures — 

 salts of ammonia and nitrate of soda — the nitrate acts somewhat 



