BARLEY 



BARLEY 



203 



Three 

 spikelets a t 

 joint of racbis, 

 a characteris- 

 tic common to 

 the six-rowed 

 barleys. 



America from southern California and eastward to 



the Copper River Experiment Station farm in Alaska. 



While barley can be raised on a wide range of 



soils, it grows best and yields the 



most marketable grain when grown 



on old, well-subdued lands, where 



the plant -food is readily obtain- 

 able. Barley is an early-maturing 



cereal, and the root growth is 



shorter and less abundant than 



that of oats or wheat; consequently, 



it is necessary to sow it on land 



that is in a high state of fertility 



and cultivation. A rich clay loam 



seems to be preferable. It is easily 



injured while the plants are young 



by an overabundance of moisture, 



and, therefore, should not be sown 



on land that is soggy, or where the 



water-line is too near the surface. 

 Rotation. — Barley should be 



grown in rotation, and not con- 

 tinuously on the same 

 land. When corn is 

 one of the crops, a 

 good rotation is corn 

 on land that the previ- 

 ous year had been in 

 hay or pasture, and 

 barley to follow corn, 

 at which time the 

 land should be seeded 

 to clover and timothy, 

 or clover and blue- 

 grass. One or two 

 crops of clover can be 

 cut the year following 

 barley, and the land 

 can be used for pas- 

 ture or hay-land the 

 year following clover. 

 The land may be ma- 

 nured to advantage at 

 any time after the 

 clover is secured, pref- 

 erably the following 

 fall and winter. By 

 running a fine - tooth 

 harrow over the grass- 

 land in the spring, the 

 manure will be dis- 

 tributed evenly, and 

 the fine roots of the 

 various grasses will 

 hold the fertility near 

 the surface, where it 

 can be utilized to a 

 certain extent by the 

 grasses and subse- 

 quently by the follow- 

 ing corn and barley 



^„^ ,. ^ crops. The above is 



Fie. 291. French Chevalier bar- _ j j i,^ „ 



ley, a standard two-rowed va- recommended when a 



riety. Lower beards clipped regular four years' ro- 

 te show arrangement of ker- J.„r;„„ i„ J„„,-„„J -Da- 



neis from side and edges. tation IS desired. Bar- 



ley does well on land that has grown potatoes, 

 beets and garden-truck the previous year. 



Seed-bed. — Much care should be given to the 

 preparation of the seed-bed to get the best yields. 

 Fall-plowing is preferable to spring-plowing. 

 When the land is fall-plowed, it should be disked 

 thoroughly in the spring and put in good tilth 

 as early as the ground will admit of working 

 to advantage. After disking, if the ground is 

 inclined to be lumpy, it should have a planker 

 or roller run over it to crush the lumps; then 

 the preparation is finished by going over the 

 ground with a fine-tooth harrow. 



Sowing the seed. — Barley is sown with either 

 the drill or the broadcast seeder at the rate of 

 one and one-half to two and one-half bushels of 

 seed per acre ; when the seeder is used, about one 

 peck more seed per acre should be used than when 

 it is sown with the drill. The time of seeding 

 varies in different localities, but in general follows 

 the wheat-seeding, and precedes oat-sowing. In 

 Wisconsin, barley is sown April 10 to May 10, 

 depending on the earliness or lateness of the 

 season. In the southern states, barley is sown 

 with success in the fall, but spring-seeding is the 

 general custom throughout the bar- 

 ley-growing states of the North. 

 In Wisconsin, at the Experiment 

 Station farm, all except one of the 

 tests made with fall-sown barley 

 have resulted in a complete failure. 



After the barley is sown, it is 

 well to run over the surface of the 

 ground with a fine-tooth harrow. 

 Lumps of dirt, clots of manure or 

 any coarse litter should not be left 

 on the land. 



No cereal crop can be used to 

 better advantage as a nurse crop 

 with alfalfa, clover or hay grasses 

 in general, than barley, as it sel- 

 dom lodges and is not so tall and 

 leafy as to prevent the entrance of 

 air and sunlight. It does not draw 

 so heavily on the moisture of the 

 soil as the other cereals, which is a 

 decided advantage to the clover 

 and grasses. When used as a nurse 

 crop with alfalfa or common clo- 

 vers, it should be seeded at the rate 

 of three pecks or one bushel of 

 seed per acre. When it is desira- 

 ble to sow barley on very rich, mellow soil, it is 

 well not to sow more than five pecks per acre, as 

 the tendency is to lodge, if sown more thickly. 

 Barley fills better than most cereals after lodging, 

 but is fully as difficult to harvest, and therefore an 

 effort should be made at the time of seeding to 

 prevent lodging, when the soil is of doubtful 

 character. 



If land is very rich, and the cereal crops gener- 

 ally lodge, the over-abundance of fertility can be 

 reduced readily by growing corn, wheat or millet. 

 Often a crop of millet can be secured after a 

 cutting of oat-hay has been taken from the land, 



Fig. 292. 

 Beardless hulless 

 six-rowed barley. 



