BARLEY

(Hordeum, L., Tri and ria monogynia, L.\ Gramineae, Ju .; characterised by an imbricated -spiked inflorescence, consisting of one-flowered spikelets in twos or threes.) A bread corn of considerable importance. Its native country is unknown, some ascribing it to Tartary, others to Siberia, and a few to Scotland. In Spain and Sicily it produces two crops in the year; but in countries as far north as Britain it produces only one, and is rather a delicate species of grain. In England it is second in importance to wheat. It is a most valuable crop in the rotation best adapted to light or turnip soils, which, from that circumstance, are sometimes called barley lands. Where its culture is best understood, as in Norfolk, it is generally preceded by turnii s or other green crop. There are two leading species of this grain in cultivation, — the Hordeum distich on, two-rowed or common barley \ and the Hordeum hexastichon, or sixrowed barley. One of the best known varieties of the latter, and the only one in common cultivation in Scotland, is called bear or bigg. It is not now very extensively used as a bread corn; but it is used very extensively in malting, and in the fatting of black cattle, hogs, and poultry. The crops dif i'er very widely, according to the land and the season, varying from 28 to 64 bushels an acre; but the most usual crop is from 2H to 40 bushels. The common weight of barley is 50 or 51 lbs. per Winchester bushel; but the best Norfolk barley weighs 53 or 54 lbs. The price of barley in 1837 was 30«.4d. a quarter. [s. 144]