6 A NEW BASIS FOR BARLEY VALUATION AND IMPROVEMENT. 
form has decidedly narrow and elongated cells, on an average live to 
six times as long as broad; those of the other type are shorter and 
relatively thicker, averaging three to four times as long as broad. It 
is easy to understand how the former will have a greater secreting 
power than the latter, since the number of cell units in a given space 
will be greater without any loss in the capacity of each cell. 
A fact of especial importance is that the broad, circular, slightly 
convex type of scutellum having long, narrow epithelial cells is 
found to be characteristic of the best grades of malting barley, 
while the narrow, deep-sunken type, with short and broad epithelial 
cells, is characteristic of barley inferior for malting purposes. A 
Fig. 1. — High-grade Swedish pedigree barley. Tin' hulls and outer membranes have been mim\ ed to 
show the ideal form of scutellum. Grain on the right entire; on the left with the scutellum removed, 
leaving a broad, shallow depression; scutellum in the center, seen from under side. Magnified 8 
diameters. 
good example of 1 his fad is seen in figure ■'!. The value of this correla- 
tion is twofold: (1) It furnishes a means of recognizing the grade 
of any variety of barley by a test that is unquestionably more reliable 
than the external earmarks hitherto relied upon, such as character 
of the hull, basal bristle, shape of the grain, etc. For in the case of 
these external tests we have nothing more than an accidental and 
somewhat inconstant coincidence between form and physiological 
quality, while in the case of the-scutellum we deal with a strictly 
vital correlation, a necessary and therefore (ixed relationship between 
the organ and the malting efficiency. In the matter of its use the 
SCUtellum tesl is almost as easy as the above-mentioned external 
[Clr. 16] 
