Leading Cereals and their By-products. 135 



extensively used in England and northern Europe for pork pro- 

 duction, and may be regarded as standing at the head of all grains 

 for producing flesh of fine quality both as to hardness and flavor. 

 (894) Strangely, there is a rather widespread shade of prejudice 

 existing against the use of barley for stock feeding in this country, 

 some even asserting that it is poisonous to farm stock. Perhaps 

 the brewers, wishing to control the entire use of this crop, have 

 furthered the prejudice. This charge should be dismissed as 

 unworthy of intelligent farmers, for the experience of the old 

 world is entirely against it. Barley often commands a low price 

 because the grains have been tarnished during harvest by rain- 

 fall or foggy weather. Such grain has lost little or none of its 

 nutrients, though for the brewer its value may have been much 

 diminished. The wise stockman will use such barley for feed 

 rather than force it on the market at the low price which it com- 

 mands. (460, 857, 891) 



179. Malting. To appreciate the value of barley by-products 

 we should understand their origin. In malting, the grain is first 

 steeped in wooden or stone cisterns, where it remains until 

 sufficiently soft to be easily crushed between the thumb and 

 finger without yielding a milky juice. The grains are next 

 spread upon a frame in a mass about twenty inches deep. Here 

 the temperature rises to about 150 degrees, and the grains begin 

 to germinate, sending out tiny sprouts. In the third step the 

 sprouting barley is spread upon the floor for the purpose of con- 

 trolling the germination, increasing or retarding it according to 

 circumstances. 



These three steps are all for the single purpose of converting 

 the starchy matter of the grain into soluble dextrin and sugar, 

 which is accomplished by a natural ferment in the grain, called 

 diastase. All of the substance of the barley grain which goes 

 into the sprouts is waste to the malster, and yet he cannot pro- 

 duce malt without sprouting the grain ; hence the close watching 

 and sudden checking of growth when that point is reached. In 

 the fourth stage the grains are kiln-dried, destroying the sprouts, 

 which are next separated from the grain by sieves, leaving the 

 dried barley grains with their load of soluble constituents. Such 



