215 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



experience; while the agriculturist, -who is bo\md 

 by a servile adherence to particular months and 

 even weeks for his operations, will unwisely treat 

 as old saws such relics of the practical skill of 

 our forefathers us the lines we have quoted. Lin- 

 njBus, the great Swedish naturalist, constantly 

 exhorted his countrymen to observe at what time 

 each tree unfolds its buds and expands its leaves. 

 In our own country, Mr Stillingfleet, an eminent 

 naturalist, made a series of very accurate obser- 

 vations upon this interesting appearance of the 

 spring. A farmer who would keep a calendar of 

 Nature in the same manner for a few j-ears, and 

 at the same time register his days of sowing and 

 the issue of his harvest, would secure, no doubt, 

 a valuable collection of rules for his guidance, 

 peculiarly applicable to the exact circumstances 

 of situation and soil amidst which he pursues his 

 calling. 



The produce of barley, according to the qua- 

 lity of the soil, is from three to four quarters to 

 the acre. A larger produce is not unfrequent; 

 and even so much as seven quarters have been 

 reaped in very favourable seasons and situations. 



The average weight of a Winchester bushel of 

 barley is between fifty and fifty-one pounds, and 

 the same measure of bigg weighs but little more 

 than forty-six pounds. It is very seldom that 

 the former is found to weigh beyond fifty-two, 

 or the latter bej'ond forty-eight pounds to the 

 bushel. The average length of a grain of barley, 

 taking the mean of many thousand measure- 

 ments, is 0.345 inch, while that of a gi'ain of 

 bigg is 0.324.3 inch. The medium length of 

 these two species gives, therefore, as nearly as 

 possible one-third of an inch, which agrees with 

 the lowest denomination or basis — the barley- 

 corn of our linear measure. 



The purposes to which barley is principally 

 applied in this kingdom are those of brewing and 

 distilling. Some portion is still brought more 

 du'ectly into consumption as human food ; but 

 this portion, for the most part, now undergoes 

 the previous process of decortication (removal of 

 the bark), whereby it is converted into what is 

 called Scotch or pearl barley. This grain, in its 

 raw state, is also used to some extent for feeding 

 poultry and fattening swine, for which latter 

 purpose it is commonly converted into meal. 

 The ancients were accustomed to feed their horses 

 upon barley, as is the case among the Span- 

 iards to the present day; and Pliny relates (Book 

 xviii. c. 7,) that the Roman gladiators were 

 called Ilordearii, from their use of this grain as 

 food. 



The use of barley in the preparation of a fer- 

 mented liquor dates from the very remotest 

 times. The invention of this preparation is as- 

 cribed to the Egyptians by ancient Gj'eek wri- 

 ters, one of whom, Dioscorldes, attributes the 

 first cultivation of barley to the same people, 



under the guidance of Osiris ; while Herodotus 

 informs us that the people of Egypt, being with- 

 out vines, made their wine from barley. Piiny, 

 in his Natural History, gives the Egyptian name 

 of this liquid as Zythum. An intoxicating li- 

 quor is still made from thisgTain, both in Egypt 

 and Nubia, to which the name of bouzah is given. 

 This is of very general consumption among the 

 lower rank of people. Burckhardt observed an- 

 other use to which barley is applied in the lat- 

 ter country. The green ears are boiled in water, 

 and served up to be eaten with milk. Among 

 the Greeks beer was distinguished as harley wine, 

 a name which sufficiently identifies the intoxi- 

 cating property of the liquid, and the material 

 whence this was drawn. From a passage in Ta- 

 citus we learn that the German people were, in 

 his day, acquainted with the process of preparing 

 beer from malted grain ; and Pliny describes a 

 similar liquid under the name of Cerevisia, an 

 appellation which it retained in Latin books of 

 more recent date. It farther appears that malt 

 liquor has formed an article of manufacture and 

 consumption 'in this country for a period at least 

 coeval with the time of Tacitus ; but we do not 

 know whether any one kind of gxain was exclu- 

 sively employed in its preparation, or whether 

 wheat and barley were not used for the purpose, 

 either indiscriminately or in conjunction. 



The general drinks of the Anglo-Saxons were 

 ale and mead : wine was a luxury for the great. 

 In the Saxon Dialogues preserved in the Cotton 

 Library in the British Museum, a boy, who is 

 questioned upon his habits and the uses of things, 

 says, in answer to the inquiry what he drank — . 

 ■' Ale if I have it, or water if I have it not." He 

 adds, that wine is the drink " of the elders and 

 the wise." Ale was sold to the people, as at this 

 day, in houses of entertainment ; " for a priest 

 was forbidden by a law to eat or drink _at ceape- 

 aletlietum, literally, places where ale was sold." 

 After the Norman conquest, wine became more 

 commonly used ; and the vine was extensively 

 cultivated in England. The people, however, 

 held to the beverage of their forefathers with 

 great pertinacity ; and neither the juice of the 

 grape nor of the apple were ever general favour- 

 ites. " The old ale knights of England," as 

 Camden calls the sturdy yeomen of this period, 

 knew not, however, the ale to which hops in the 

 next century gave both flavour and preservation. 

 Hops appear to have been used in the breweries 

 of the Netherlands in the beginning of the four- 

 teenth century. In England they were not used 

 in the composition of beer tiU nearly two centu- 

 ries afterwards. It has been affirmed that the 

 planting of hops was forbidden in the reign of 

 Henry VI. : and it is certain that Henry VIII. 

 forbade brewers to put hops and sulphur into 

 ale. In the fifth year of Edward VI., the 

 roval and national taste appears to have 



