1 68 PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL BOTANY 



Cultivation and Yield. The rate of seeding varies greatly in different 

 wheat districts of the United 'States. East of the Mississippi River, two 

 bushels of well-cleaned seed will give the best results. In the dry farming 

 regions of the West, three pecks in the driest sections and six to eight 

 pecks in the more humid sections are used. Wheat is usually harvested, 

 when fully ripe. The straw should be yellow in color and the grain, in 

 hard dough, while on the Pacific Coast, it is allowed to stand a week, or 

 two, after it is ripe and is then gathered with a combined harvester and 

 thresher. Wheat should be shocked the same day it is cut. This pre- 

 vents rapid drying and aids the more complete storage of starch in the 

 grain from the plastic materials found in stem and leaves. The experi- 

 ence of last summer (1919) indicates that wheat should be hauled into 

 the barn, as soon as possible, as a wet spell may completely destroy the 

 crop by the sprouting of the wheat grains, while in shock. Threshing 

 may then be done at a convenient time, the sooner the better, and the 

 threshed grain should be stored in tight, clean granaries. The average 

 yield of wheat hi France is 20 bushels per acre. The yield of wheat in 

 the United States in 1909, nineteen bushels per acre, was greatest in the 

 regions receiving 30 to 35 inches of precipitation during that crop year. 

 This yield of nineteen bushels per acre seems too low an average for a 

 progressive agricultural country like the United States. The yield might 

 be increased by giving up slip shod methods of cultivation and by growing 

 improved varieties. 



Barley (Hordeum vulgare). Botanists recognize at least two species 

 of barley with a number of varieties of each species. The two species are 

 known to science as the six-rowed barley (Hordeum vulgar e) , and the two- 

 rowed barley (Hordeum distichon). Koernicke believes that the proto- 

 type of the cultivated barleys is Hordeum spontaneum, a type nearly re- 

 lated to the nutans form of two-rowed barley. Rimpau considers the 

 six-rowed bearded barley as the progenitor of all the types. 



Winter barleys are susceptible to winter cold, even more than winter 

 rye, or winter wheat, hence in the northern United States practically all 

 the barley is sown in the spring. As a spring grown crop, it is cultivated 

 in Alaska, as far north, as 65N. latitude and up to an altitude of 7,500 

 feet in the Rocky mountains. At higher elevations, it is grown for hay 

 in a variety known as "bald barley. " 



Description. The barley plant is a summer, or a winter annual. 

 The roots resemble those of the oat, and from the root system arise 



