barley is sown with one ploughing only, and as 
quickly aiterwards as possible, upon what is 
termed hot-fur, so as not to allow time for the 
newly turned up soil to lose its sap. When, how- 
ever, these soils happen to turn up very coarse 
and cloddy, it is sometimes judged proper to 
harrow and roll the land, and to give a second or 
even a third ploughing, to reduce the soil to good 
tilth. This is often more especially necessary on 
the land where the last of the turnip crop has 
been consumed, when a considerable drought has 
set in after the surface has been much trampled 
upon in consuming the turnips, by which the 
soil becomes so hardened and consolidated, as to 
require the industrious use of the plough, har- 
rows, and roller, to render it proper for receiving 
the barley seed, which if possible ought always 
to be sown on a fine tilth.” Bethe precise imple- 
ments and the precise methods what they may, 
the soil must be reduced to a state of compara- 
tively dry powder, else barley ought not to be 
sown; and should weather or other circum- 
stances be unfavourable, let the farmer rather 
postpone the sowing to the latest possible period, 
than deposit the seed upon waxy, cloddy, or ill- 
pulverized ground. See the articles GrusBer, 
Proves, and Tinage. 
In well managed farms, the only manuring for 
barley is the amelioration of the soil by the pre- 
ceding turnip crop being fed off with sheep. Yet 
when the turnips require to be carted off, and 
the land is in a somewhat exhausted condition, a 
good dressing of well-fermented spit-dung, in a 
state of thorough decomposition, may be given. 
In districts near the coast, sea-weed, when abun- 
dant and easily obtained, is sometimes very effi- 
| ciently applied as a top-dressing after the barley 
has germinated and appeared above ground ; 
and this appliance is, of course, especially useful 
when the turnips have not been consumed upon 
the field. Soot was formerly given in some parts 
of England as a top-dressing after germination, 
but not with good effect. A common custom, in 
former times also, was to sprinkle malt dust upon 
newly sown fields, in the proportion of about forty 
bushels per acre. In the higher parts of Scot- 
land, lands which have been fallowed in prepara- 
tion for bere, are sometimes manured in the same 
manner as for turnips ; yet even in these districts, 
the method, now almost universal in England and 
Lowland Scotland, is practised of giving no man- 
ure to barley except indirectly through a pre- 
ceding crop of turnips. In the old Scottish sys- 
tem of husbandry, when the best of the ‘infields’ 
or home lands were under a continual course of 
| cropping, the whole farm manure was applied to 
one-third of the infield for a crop of barley. This 
division of the infield received three or more 
ploughings, or a kind of bastard spring fallow; 
and the other two divisions were under either 
oats or pease. As the outfield never received 
any manure, and contributed the whole of its 
straw to the farm-yard, an ample quantity of 
BARLEY. 
345 
manure was always available for the barley 
break. But the whole of the barbarous system 
of infield and outfield, together with its appro- 
priation of all the manure of the farm to barley, 
oats, and pease on the home lands, can now be 
found only in the worst parts of the Highlands 
and Islands, and is steadily in the course of ex- 
termination from even its fastnesses among the 
mountains and on the islands. 
Barley may be sown at any time, according to 
soil, climate, situation, and weather, from the 
early part of March till the end of May. The 
best practical rule is to sow as early after the 
middle of March as the ground is dry, and a 
prospect exists of a day or two’s drought ; and to 
postpone sowing till May, so long as the ground 
is wet and the weather unsettled. The soil can 
scarcely be too dry at the time of receiving the 
seed; and, if it afterwards obtain the moisture 
of only two or three showers to promote vegeta- 
tion, it can produce a good crop though it should 
continue dry throughout the summer. Barley 
has been known to germinate, grow, and ripen, 
without receiving so much as one shower from 
the time of sowing till that of reaping; and, on 
the other hand, the fall of a single shower upon 
a field of strong soil, immediately after being 
sown with barley, will burst and otherwise kill a 
large proportion of the seeds, and inevitably 
cause the crop to be thin. In general, early- 
sown barley, when the soil and the weather are 
dry, tillers better and produces a heavier crop of 
grain than late-sown barley. On strong lands, 
in particular, late-sown barley is liable to tiller 
badly, to rush up into long and feeble culms, and, | 
in consequence, to be easily laid and subjected | 
to discolouration and waste; while, on weak | 
lands, it will fail to possess even tolerably large | 
culms, and will yield both a small and a com- 
paratively bad harvest of both straw and grain. 
Yet, in some seasons, early sown barley is liable 
to be very seriously injured by smart frosts or 
heavy rains ; and late-sown barley obtains favour- 
able weather, and produces much the better crop. | 
Discrimination, indeed, must be freely and wisely | 
exercised, not alone as regards the state of the | 
soil and the weather, but as regards the climate, | 
St 
+ 
the quality of the soil, and the late or early habits | 
of the species or variety of the grain. 
Cold and | 
poor soils require to be sown earlier than warm | 
and rich soils; and late varieties of barley, other 
circumstances being equal, require to be sown | 
earlier than early varieties. 
Barley may be sown either broadcast or by the 
drill. Ifsown broadcast, every handful, in order 
to effect regularity of dispersion upon the inelastic 
surface of the finely pulverized soil, requires to 
be cast with considerably greater force than is 
requisite for any other sort of grain; and in order | 
that the sower may not be exhausted with fa- 
tigue, and may possess the best grasp of the plump 
and slippery seed-corn, he ought to walk in short 
steps, and sow in small handfuls. But sowing by | 
