BARLEY. 



GRAMINE^E. Hordeum. 



Ex. ix. 31 ; Numb. v. 15; Deut. viii. 8; Ruth i. 22, ii. 23, iii. 2, 15, 17. 



)o general has been the cultivation of barley that almost 

 all traces of its native country have been lost. The 

 same remark will apply to several of the most useful 

 grains; and it is worthy of notice that the seeds or 

 grains best suited to support the human family are 

 of such a nature as to adapt themselves to the largest surface 

 of soil and the greatest variety of temperature. Rice, maize 

 or Indian corn, and wheat, are the most widely spread ; and 

 barley, with oats, extends very far north in Europe, the former 

 being cultivated as high up as 70 north latitude. 



In Syria the cultivation of barley has given rise to many 

 apparent contradictions among travellers, as well as variation in 

 their notices of the times of sowing and gathering. Some 

 have remarked that in September and October the natives are 

 engaged in planting; others have postponed the planting- 

 season to February, and even March. These variations are 

 easily accounted for by the fact that barley is sown in that 

 country in some places in the fall, and the natives, interrupted 

 by the rains, postpone planting the remaining seed until the 

 opening of spring. It has often been noticed that in the same 

 week the barley in one field for example, near Gaza was 



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