BARLEY. 



313 



and Hordeum zeocriton, the sprat or battledore barley. The 

 first named is used generally throughout the North, and is 

 sown in the spring, while in the South it is sown in the 

 autumn. 



The grain of the six-rowed variety is much smaller than 

 the others; but the yieid is larger. 

 When the grain is deprived of its husk 

 by a mill it is called pot barley or 

 Scotch hulled. If the skin of the grain 

 or bran is taken off, it is then white 

 and clear looking, and is called pearl 

 barley. This ground into flour be- 

 comes patent barley. 



The origin of barley is veiled in the 

 misty past, and, like many of the 

 cereals is unknown. It grows wild in 

 Sicily, as also in Asia. The ancients 

 claim that Isis introduced it into 

 Egypt from Asia fifteen hundred years 

 before the Christian era, while Pliny says it was brought 

 by Ceres from Asia when she returned from the search for 

 Proserpine, and she taught its use to the inhabitants of 

 Sicily, at the same time she introduced wheat and rye, 

 hence from her they were called Cereals. 



Moses, in Genesis, says, "the flax and the barley were 

 smitten, for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was in 

 the boll;" this being one of the plagues that was sent on 

 Pharaoh. Pliny says, further, it was the first food of 

 mankind. That it formed a very important article of 

 human diet is shown by the high estimation in which it 

 was held by the earlier citizens of the world. God, in his 

 promises to the Isrealites, speaks of the goodly heritage he 

 had prepared for them: "a good land; a land of brooks of 

 water, of fountains and depths that spring out of the valleys 

 and hills; a land of wheat and barley and vines and figtrees 

 and pomegranates; a land of oil and olive and honey; a 



Hordeum Hexastichum. 



