The Development of the Grain of Barley. 
BY 
WINIFRED E. BRENCHLEY, D.Sc., F.L.S. 
With twenty-two Figures in the Text. 
A. Processes of Nutrition. 
HREE plots, of as diverse treatment as possible, were selected to pro- 
X vide material for experiment. One plot, A, cropped under a four- 
course rotation, has received a dressing of cake-fed dung one year in every 
four, the last application falling in the year of the experiment, so that the 
plot, while plentifully supplied with all the essential plant foods, is specially 
rich in nitrogen. A second plot, B, comes under the same rotation but 
receives no manure, and is therefore deficient in plant nutrients, especially 
nitrogen. The third plot, C,is in the permanent barley field, which has carried 
barley since 1852, and it has received no phosphoric acid since that date, 
though an adequate supply of the other essential elements is provided in the 
form of alkali salts and ammonium salts. Thus the samples collected should 
show the results obtained from a nitrogenous general manuring, from a rotation 
without any addition of manure, and also the effect of phosphoric acid 
starvation in the presence of a sufficiency of nitrogen, potash, and other 
alkalis. 
The same methods of sampling were adopted as in the case of the 
previous wheat experiments. 1 Ears were marked with ties of red wool on 
the day on which they first came into flower, thus ensuring uniformity in 
age. The plots A and B flowered within three days of one another, but the 
plants on the P 2 O s -starved plot C were ten days later in protruding the first 
anthers. As might have been expected, the plants with nitrogenous manure 
were long and heavy in straw, and were badly laid in places within five days 
from flowering. 
Cuttings from these marked shoots were made at three-day intervals 
between 5 and 7 a.m. After transference to the laboratory the grain 
was stripped from the ear and the awns cut off close to the grain as rapidly 
1 Brenchley, W. E., and Hall, A. D. : The Development of the Grain of Wheat. Journ. Agr. 
Sc., vpl. iii, part II, 1909, p. 197. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXVI. No. CIII. July, igra.] 
