266 OP CROPS USUALLY CULTIVATED. 



sown at that advanced period of the season.* In late har- 

 vests also, which so often happen in Scotland, barley will 

 ripen sooner than any other grain. The principal objec- 

 tion, therefore, to the growth of barley, is the uncertainty 

 of the demand, arising from the unfortunate circumstance 

 of its distillation being so frequently prohibited. 



In many parts of Scotland, more especially in the north- 

 ern districts, the culture of that species, called bear or big, 

 is recommended instead of the two-rowed barley. An in- 

 telligent farmer in the Mearns assigns the following reasons 

 for preferring bear : The crop of grass, he observes, is al- 

 most constantly good or bad, in proportion as the ground 

 is more or less pulverized ; and as bear may be sown three, 

 or perhaps four weeks later than barley, it may be done, 

 even in a northern climate, at a season when the land can 

 be brought to a finer tilth. If the grain crop should hap- 

 pen to lodge, as bear will be sooner ripe than barley, and 

 consequently earlier taken off' the ground, the danger of 

 rotting the young grass is less. In northern districts, the 

 earliest grains ought to be cultivated ; and barley is not 

 only later than bear, but it requires to stand longer in the 

 stook before it be fit for stacking. No doubt barley is the 

 more valuable grain of the two; but that cannot be put in 

 competition with the risk of a late and precarious harvest, 

 and perhaps the loss, or at least the deterioration, of the 

 two following crops of grass, by which, not only the food 

 for cattle is lessened, but the land becomes fouler; since 

 weeds will vegetate, if the land be not better occupied. 

 The produce also from bear, will be found to be greater 



* The real spring-wheat is certainly an exception, as it should be sown 

 in the end of April, or beginning of May. It is a singular circumstance, 

 that in many parts of Scotland, barley was the latest ready of all the 

 crops of grain last season, (anno 1811.) 



