THE BARLEY CROP. 



BARLEY is generally admitted to the second place in the 

 order of our cereal crops, oats usually being looked upon 

 as a crop of inferior importance to the farmers of the 

 southern portions of the kingdom. In the north, and 

 especially in Scotland, these two crops have reversed posi- 

 tions assigned to them in the farmer's estimation ; our 

 climate and soils being generally better adapted for oats 

 than for barley, the former are much more extensively 

 cultivated. 1 



Of what country barley was originally a native, we have 

 no knowledge, as from the earliest historical periods, we 

 find barley mentioned as one of the crops cultivated by 

 the hand of man. In the fields of Egypt, Syria, and the 

 East generally, it was a well-known grain. We are told 

 in the book of Ruth that " she gleaned in the field until 

 even, and beat out that she had gleaned, and it was about 

 an ephah of barley'' In the agriculture of ancient Greece 

 and Rome it occupied a prominent position. According 

 to Diodorus Siculus the plant was first discovered by 

 Osiris, who redeemed it from its wild condition, and gave 

 it as a boon to that art, agriculture, over which he was 

 supposed to preside. In Uncient Greece, too, Pliny tells 

 us, on the authority of the historian Menander, that barley 

 was so highly esteemed as a bread-corn, as to be used by 



1 The oat produce of Scotland for 1856-7 amounted to 938,613 qrs. The barley 

 produce for 1856-7 was only 198,387 qrs. Agricultural Statistics for Scotland , 

 1857. 



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