THE YOUNG 



NATURALIST. 



the original species from which our 



cultivated cereals have been developed 



seems lost in the mists or mazes of 



antiquity. In Britain we have four 



indigenous species of Hordeum, but 



none of them can claim to be the 



ancestor of the cultivated barley fJI. 



distic/wnj, of which numerous varieties 



are known to the seedsman and farmer. 



A field of barley at all stages of its 



growth is a pleasing sight. On a bright 



May morning, before the sun has drunk 



up the dew, when every slender spire 



is peeping through the ground, firm, 



sharp, rigid, erect, and independent, 



as if prepared to push its own way in 



the world, and tipped with a glittering 



dewdrop sparkling like a diamond in 



the sun's rays, reminding one of the 



old lyric : — 



" Ilka blade o' grass keps its am drap o* 

 dew." 



Watch it a few weeks later, and the 

 brown earth has disappeared, covered 

 by the long, narrow, sharp-pointed 

 leaves, of a deep dark green with a 

 glaucous bloom, which gives promise 

 to the farmer of a sturdy stem and 

 heavy yield. But soon — 



" The sultry suns of summer came 

 And he grew thick and strong, 

 His head well armed with pointed spears 

 That no one should him wrong." 



And now the full grown barley is 

 swaying in the summer's breeze, and 

 illustrating the static law that waves 

 can be formed without any forward 



motion of the object acted upon. On 

 a breezy summer's day it is the very 

 poetry of motion to watch the swelling 

 billows rippling along a cornfield, 

 with the play of light and shade on 

 the upturned undersurfaces of the 

 leaves, and flecked with the shadows 

 of flitting cloudlets. And lastly there 

 is the soothing richness of colour, 

 when sober Autumn robes it in the 

 golden glory of mellow ripened 

 corn. 



The cereals and grasses are so 

 natural an order, and have so many 

 points in common, that barley will 

 serve very well as a type to illustrate 

 the leading characteristics of the order. 

 The roots of barley do not penetrate 

 any great distance into the earth, but 

 ramify in slender fibres immediately 

 below the surface of the soil, and 

 secondary or adventitious roots are 

 freely produced from the lower portions 

 of the stem, and from the same point 

 originates the subsidary stems, so that 

 from one solitary seed as many as 

 half a dozen separate stalks may be 

 developed. The stem itself is a triumph 

 of vegetable architecture for strength, 

 lightness, and rigidity, combined with 

 elasticity, it is a hollow cylinder 

 strengthened at intervals by the 'solid 

 thickened joints or nodes from whence 

 spring the leaves. A very considerable 

 amount of mineral constituents, chiefly 

 silica, enters into the straw of cereals, 

 and this gives the rigidity which 



