VARIETIES OF BARLEY 207 



farming eye it denotes the same retail way of business 

 as the endless tiny shops in the suburbs of a manufac- 

 turing town. 



Our host farmed on the strict four-course rotation, 

 which is nowadays far more characteristic of other 

 counties than of Norfolk, that gives it its name. The 

 dung was put on to the turnips, which were eaten off 

 by sheep and followed by barley, but red clover could 

 only be sown in alternate rotations, its place being 

 taken other times by a mixture of alsike, trefoil, and 

 grass seeds. Our host recognized the value of lime for 

 his land, and applied it each time the seeds came round, 

 with marked benefit to the stand of the clovers. 



It was early land and harvest was already in full 

 swing ; the barley had been cut, and we could see a 

 much better plant of seeds had been obtained than was 

 usual that year. Throughout this district the barleys 

 are nearly all of the wide-eared type, Goldthorpe, 

 Burton Malting, etc., and the local buyers will not look 

 at anything of a Chevallier type. The slightly higher 

 rainfall in the west may be the cause of this preference 

 for the wide-eared barleys ; in the east they only 

 begin to be grown when one gets to the Lincoln Wolds 

 and from thence northward into Scotland. The pref- 

 erence of the maltsters and brewers for one or other 

 type seems to be based on little more than custom, 

 but from the farmer's point of view the wide-rowed 

 barleys are generally credited with being a little 

 stronger in the straw and therefore better for heavy 

 and highly farmed land. On the other hand, they are 

 very long in the neck that is to say, the joint between 

 the ear and the first node is both longer than usual 

 and is not supported by the sheath, so that heavy wind 

 when the corn is ripe is apt to break off a large pro- 

 portion of heads. 



