CULTURE. BARLEY. 163 



ten, sugar, water, and oil. Starch is the most important 

 ingredient for the nourishment of the young plant or 

 the germ. 



Wheat contains a greater amount of nourishment, 

 also, for the human system, than the same quantity of 

 almost any other vegetable product. A bushel of wheat, 

 or sixty pounds, when ground into flour, will make 

 about forty-seven pounds of what may be called bread- 

 flour ; about four and a quarter pounds of fine Pollard, 

 or mixture of bran and meal ; about four pounds of 

 coarse Pollard, two and three-fourths pounds of bran, 

 and there will be a loss, on an average, of about two 

 pounds, making in all sixty pounds. 



There are two methods of cultivation in general prac- 

 tice in this country, the old method of sowing broad- 

 cast, and the drill system, which is the more economi- 

 cal of the two, as it effects a saving of seed, and greater 

 security against what is called heaving out by the frost, 

 while the crop is usually greater, particularly if the 

 plant is cultivated, during its growth, as it may be, 

 between the drills. Very perfect drilling machines are 

 now in use in wheat-growing sections of the country. 



BARLEY. 



BARLEY (Hordeum vulgare) has generally a more slen- 

 der seed than that of wheat, and a firmer and rougher 

 covering of husk or chaff. It has also a longer awn, or 

 beard. Its amount of starch is about the same as that 

 of wheat, some analyses showing it to be greater, and 

 others less ; but its amount of gluten is less. It con- 

 tains, also, several per cent., ordinarily from six to 

 eight, of uncornbined saccharine matter. 



The average length of a grain of barley, or the mean 

 of many thousand measurements, is .345 of an inch, or 

 not far from a third of an inch, from which was derived 



