MALTING BARLEY 95 



preparation for wheat, and their introduction had 

 improved the cropping powers of the land all round. 

 If the peas were got off early, summer turnips could 

 be sown and followed by oats, but as a rule wheat 

 succeeded to the peas. After wheat came the roots 

 swedes or kale, eaten off by sheep, and then barley 

 was sown, the Heath being one of the largest districts 

 for fine barley in the country. After the rough dark 

 grain crops of the Fens we were all the more readily 

 impressed by the uniformity of these large stretches 

 of barley, and by the clean bright straw, which in very 

 few places had been laid. As we walked among the 

 crops the shortness of the straw and the comparative 

 absence of flag were noticeable, both features which 

 help towards a fine malting quality in the sample by 

 the aid they give to uniform ripening and rapid 

 harvesting. In the barley the small seeds are sown, 

 and the land is usually left down to temporary grass 

 for two or three years. Red clover answers very 

 indifferently and is rarely cultivated ; instead it is 

 a general custom to sow a mixture of alsike and white 

 clover, of which we saw several very pleasing pastures 

 all along the Heath. Sainfoin is also sown, either 

 alone or mixed with the clovers, good grazing for the 

 sheep being the desideratum. Very few other crops 

 were seen ; a little of the root area was given up to 

 mangolds, but potatoes are not grown until some of 

 the rather stronger land is reached, sufficiently near 

 to Lincoln to permit of the potatoes being carted into 

 the town for local sale. We saw a few crops of 

 mustard ripening for seed, and in one or two cases the 

 leys were being allowed to bloom with the idea of 

 threshing out afterwards white clover seed from the 

 hay. 



The rotation just described would provide saleable 



