494 
Barley from a Maltster s Point of View. 
Perhaps I should explain that these latter generally comprise 
the " screenings " from all the different parcels of barley, English 
and foreign, that the maltster has received into store during the 
season, maturing early and late, short-strawed and loug-strawed, 
thick-skinned and thin-skinned, good coloured and bad coloured. 
These are all inextricably mixed, and ought only to be bought 
for feeding purposes, where the mixture is of no consequence. 
One might as well expect to gather "figs from thistles" as 
to secure a good even harvest of barley from this mixed refuse 
as seed ! 
This is not a matter of science, but of common sense. If 
rubbish be sown, it would be strange if there were anything but 
rubbish to reap. As, however, the object of the farmer is to 
grow malting and not grinding barley, it is simply suicidal folly 
to sow his fields with what could not, by anything short of a 
miracle, produce the desired result, even if the season were the 
most favourable ever known. I am aware, of course, that motives 
of economy are accountable for the practice referred to ; but a 
very little calculation will suffice to convince those who have 
hitherto adopted it that it is the height of false economy, since 
the difference in cost between " screenings " and best seed barley 
at two bushels to the acre is infinitesimal as compared with the 
relative value of the respective crops. 
It may be said that I am deprecating only extreme and 
exceptional cases ; but the same rule holds good throughout. 
Most farmers seem to think that barley is barley, and that 
cheapness is the one desidei-atum in buying their seed. They 
do not, it is true, all sow " screenings," but, on the other hand, 
very few of them go to the trouble and expense of selecting 
their seed ; and yet there are as many varieties of barley, good, 
bad, and indiflFerent, as of other kinds of agricultural produce. 
If the fruit-grower means to cultivate pears or the florist roses, 
he takes care to select the best stock for his purpose, and even 
in regard to wheat the farmer does not display the same amount 
of happy-go-lucky indifference that he does with respect to 
barley, though quality really affects the market value of the latter 
far more than that of the former. The miller cannot, like the 
maltster, afford to give long fancy prices for fine samples of grain, 
because the conditions of his trade preclude the possibility of 
an adequate return ; whereas the maltster is always ready to pay 
handsomely for exceptionally fine parcels of barley, because really 
first quality malt readily commands a relatively high figure. 
Nor is there any secret about the reason for this. The brewers 
obtain a considerably higher price per barrel for their fine than 
far their ordinary ales, and as they reckon three to four barrels 
