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half in "biillv, in twenty-four hours, and when dried, diminishes to the bulk 

 of the grain, but when finally prepared yields eighty pounds of malt to 

 one hundred pounds of barley. 



Agriculturists and botanists enumerate many varieties of barley, but 

 those chiefly cultivated are summer (hordeum vulgare,) in which the ker- 

 nels are disposed in two rows, one on either side, with erect awns, thin 

 husk and large grains. And the winter (hordeum hexasticon,) or double 

 rowed, which is more hardy than the summer variety, ripens earlier, and is 

 better calculated for cold, bleak situations. At the same time it possesses 

 far less saccharine matter than those growing under a more genial sun. 



The gluten of barley is soluble in cold water, but coagulates at 130°, it 

 contains a minute quantity of green oily matter, in taste resembling 

 whiskey, and from which it, no doubt, receives its flavor, besides a small 

 percentage of nitrate of soda, capable of crystalizing. 



Barley is not so nutritious as wheat, has but one-third as much gluten, 

 as much sugar, more mucilage, and the same quantity of starch. These 

 qualities make it a less stimulating and lighter food than wheat, though 

 much less nutritive. When baidey is cut it should be housed immediately, 

 from the fact that if it becomes wet it sprouts and is unfit for bread. 



OATS — {Ave?ia Latina.) 

 Is, no doubt the hardiest of all the cereal family, and enjoys a cold cli- 

 mate, so much so that it cannot be cultivated in the southern parts of 

 Europe. I never saw it south of Paris. It possesses one important ad- 

 vantage over all the other grains, and that is, it will succeed where they 

 will not. Crude soils, and stiff clays, if only dry, will grow it ; its flavor 

 for food is improved when the soil is poor, and exposure bleak and cold. 

 The relative proportions of meal and husk, in the several varieties of oats, 

 differ in a greater degree than any other cereal. The potato oat is rich in 

 meal, and the Tartary oat, in husk ; the former is grown in Scotland for 

 banoeks, and the latter in England for bread, and the two in this country 

 for horses. Soil, climate, season, variety, and manure applied, all effect 

 the produce and chemical composition of the grain. Its native country is 

 unknown. Lord Anson discovered it growing luxuriantly on the island of 

 Juan Fernandez. By analysis, in 1,000 parts were found 641 parts of 

 starch, 87 gluten, 15 saccharine matter, showing that it contains less 

 nutritive matter than corn, rye, wheat or barley, and still the laboring 

 people of Scotland, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Wales, subsist mainly, 

 and retain their strength upon bread and sundry other preparations made 

 from it. Those people infinitely prefer bread made from oats than from 

 any other cereal, and it actually occupies the same place in Scotland that 

 the potato does in Ireland, and rye in Germany. When the ground is foul 

 and badly prepared twenty bushels to the acre may be considered a fair 

 yield, but in a rich, well managed, thoroughly drained piece of sandy 

 loam, I have raised eiglity bushels to the acre, v^eighing forty-five pounds to 

 the bushel, and have caused the same oats, sown in drills, to weigh forty- 

 eight pounds, yielding eight pounds of meal to fourteen pounds of oats. 



