BAR 



BAR 



15 



barley. Swimming the barley be- 

 fore it is sown, will in great mea- 

 sure prevent this inconvenience. 

 Almost every oat, and a few of the 

 worst of the barley corns, will be 

 on the surface of the water, and 

 may be taken off. 



But the speedy degeneration of 

 barley is a good reason for chang- 

 ing the seed very frequently. In 

 some parts of the country, the bar- 

 ley, for want of changing, has come 

 to pifdace liltle or nothing. 



Not o.ily ci^anging seed, but sorts 

 of barley, should be attended to. 

 Some sorts are at least more pro- 

 ductive than others, if not of a bet- 

 ter quality. The two rowed bar- 

 ley has seldom more than 32 corns 

 on an ear : The six rowed has 

 sometimes 72, that is 12 in a row. 

 0/ the lattersort one pint produced 

 me three pecks in a single drill 

 row. It was at the rate of about 

 three pecks of seed, and forty 

 bushels crop to the acre, on a poor 

 gravelly soil. This sort is called 

 Bear, Bere, or Barley big. It is a 

 winter grain in England and Ire- 

 land. But I must mention one in- 

 convenience attending the six 

 rowed barley, which is, that the 

 seeds are apt to break off and fall, 

 if the corn stands till it is fully ripe. 

 I now cultivate a four rowed barley, 

 which has not this inconvenience 

 attending it : And it yields as 

 plentifully as any other. 



I would recommend the drill 

 and horse hoeing method of rais- 

 ing barley, when it is designed for 

 hulling, as the corns will be the 

 more full and plump, and have a 

 less quantity of hull in proportion 

 to the flour. 



Sir John Sinclair, in speaking of 

 the agricultural practice of Mr. 

 Coke, of Holkham, says, •' He uses 

 the R.ev. Mr. Coke's drill, which 

 sows six rows at a time, and an 

 acre an hour, drawn by a single 

 horse. His wheat he sows at nine 

 inches asunder, his barley at six in- 

 ches three quarters. He consid- 

 ers any attempt to save seed by 

 drilling founded on erroneous prin- 

 ciples ; and the quantity of seed 

 he sows per acre is four bushels of 

 wheat, three of barley, and six of 

 oats. On his farm it is a practice, 

 not generally known, but which 

 ought to be attended to, on rich 

 soils, to draw the drills from north 

 to south (if the nature of the ground 

 will admit of it), and on poorweak 

 soils from east to west.'' 



The author of the ' Synopsis of 

 Husbandry, an English publication, 

 observes that it is improper to sow 

 clover among barley on rich land, 

 because the natural fertility of the 

 soil hastens on the vegetation of 

 the grass, which will, before har- 

 vest have advanced to a considera- 

 ble height among the corn, and oc- 

 casion a longer time to be necessa- 

 ry for drying the swath. But on 

 lands where there is not the dan- 

 ger of so luxuriant an increase, 

 clover and other grass seeds, he 

 thinks, may often be sown among 

 barley ; and if a favourable time 

 can be procured for harvesting it, 

 the straw may be greatly improved 

 by the mixture of clover or other 

 grasses, and become then a valua- 

 ble fodder in the winter ; but bar- 

 ley straw simply is, he says, the 

 most ordinary cattle food of any. 



The following has been rccom- 



