BARLEY. 319 



as other kinds of food, each soldier providing himself with 

 a sack, which he strapped to his saddle. They were thus ena- 

 bled to make long and secret expeditions. Mixed with 

 oats and fed to horses/it makes a most excellent grain food, 

 and even now, in some countries, swine, fattened with it, 

 bring a large price for the peculiar sweetness of the flesh 

 which is not only made more tender, but is said to increase 

 in boiling. 



Barley meal is a favorite swill feed for cattle and hogs 

 in the portions of North Carolina and Virginia, where corn 

 does not succeed well. It is fed to them in its first stages 

 of fermentation. The grain is also, by some, soaked until 

 it swells, and fed in that condition. Barley straw, cut fine 

 with rneal sprinkled over it, is an excellent food for cattle 

 and horses, but especially for milk cows, as it increases, 

 both the flow and richness of milk. In Arabia and Egypt, 

 where the most celebrated horses of the world are bred, th 

 almost sole 'food they receive is Barley, in its natural state? 

 without either cooking or grinding. There is a prejudice 

 in the minds of some, that Barley, fed alone, possesses heat- 

 ing properties, but when we see its good effects in this nursery 

 of horses, and in a country naturally far warmer than this, 

 we should no longer hesitate in its use. It is comparatively 

 free from diseases and from the depredations of insects ; it 

 produces more to the acre than wheat or rye, and will make 

 good crops with less cultivation and on poorer land than 

 corn, and yet, in Tennessee, the use of this valuable grain 

 as a stock food, is not what it should be. It has so long 

 been consumed by the brewer, that any other use is not 

 thought of. It can be used as a food, from the time the 

 shoots come out of the ground first as a pasture; then as 

 grain and hay. It fills every indication required, and be- 

 sides, if the wheat bin becomes exhausted, there is a never- 

 failing supply of batter-cakes, equal to buckwheat, to carry 

 the family to the next crop. 



As a theraputic agent, barley, as before stated, has a very 



