22 SOMERSET BARLEY GROWING 



whose recesses lie Nether Stowey and Kilve, holy 

 ground indeed for pilgrims, but for another occasion 

 than ours. We were still on the New Red Sandstone, 

 a light, free-working loam, containing no stone 

 indeed, the sort of land that was poorly enough 

 esteemed in the old days when a man grew his crops 

 out of the capital in the ground, but nowadays the 

 most valuable of land to the intensive farmer who 

 treats it liberally, because it is both grateful for manure 

 and cheap to work. Like many of the sands of the 

 New Red formation it is a little deficient in lime and 

 potash ; finger-and-toe is not unknown among the 

 turnips ; red clover is not as successful as some of the 

 other crops and is benefited by applications of potash 

 manures. One is accustomed to speak of such land 

 as " sheep and barley soil," but in few other places 

 does barley form such a feature in the rotation, 

 being grown no fewer than three times in a five-year 

 rotation of roots, barley, barley, seeds, followed by 

 barley again. Of course, the soil and climate are 

 particularly suited to growing the finest Chevallier 

 barley ; early sowing is nearly always possible in that 

 open genial district in fact, we were shown several 

 fields which had been sown in January even in such a 

 difficult season as that of 1910. The barley was a 

 heavy crop, at least six quarters to the acre, with 

 specially reedy straw almost free from flag, these 

 features being characteristic of the soil and the early 

 sowing; it was ripening rapidly and promised to be 

 ready for cutting in the first week of August, and 

 though somewhat laid would be easily manageable 

 with the binder. More beautiful examples of finely- 

 finished barley would be hard to find indeed, soil and 

 climate there are very much the same as those which 

 prevail on those special few hundred acres of land 



