Rotation. — Barley should be grown in rotation, and not con tinuously on the same land. When corn is one of the crops, a. good rotation is corn on land that the previ ous year had been in hay or pasture, and barley to follow corn, at which time the land should be seeded to clover and timothy, or clover and blue grass. One or t w o crops of clover can be cut the year following barley, and the land can be used for pas ture or hay-land the year following clover. The land may be ma mired to advantage at any time after the clover is secured, pref erably the following fall and winter. By running a fine-tooth harrow over the grass land in the spring, the manure will be dis tributed evenly, and the fine roots of the various grasses will hold the fertility near the surface, where it can be utilized to a certain extent by the grasses a n d subse quently by the follow ing corn and barley crops. The above is recommended when a regular four years' ro tation is desired. Bar ley does well on land that has grown potatoes, beets and garden-truck the previous year.
Seed-bed.—Much care should be given to the preparation of the seed-bed to get the best yields. Fall-plowing is preferable to spring-plowing. When the land is fall-plowed, it should be disked thoroughly in the spring and put in good tilth as early as the ground will admit of working to advantage. After disking, if the ground is inclined to be lumpy, it should have a planker or roller run over it to crush the lumps; then the preparation is finished by going over the ground with a fine-tooth harrow.
Sowing the seed.—Barley is sown with either the drill or the broadcast seeder at the rate of one and one-half to two and one-half bushels of seed per acre ; when the seeder is used, about one peck more seed per acre should be used than when it is sown with the drill. The time of seeding varies in different localities, but in general follows the wheat-seeding, and precedes oat-sowing. In Wisconsin, barley is sown April 10 to May 10, depending on the earliness or lateness of the season. In the southern states, barley is sown with success in the fall, but spring-seeding is the general custom throughout the bar ley-growing states of the North.
In Wisconsin, at the Experiment, Station farm, all except one of the tests made with fall-sown barley have resulted in a complete failure.
After the barley is sown, it is well to run over the surface of the ground with a fine-tooth harrow. Lumps of dirt, clots of manure or any coarse litter should not be left on the land.
No cereal crop can be used to better advantage as a nurse crop with alfalfa, clover or hay grasses in general, than barley, as it sel dom lodges and is not so tall and leafy as to prevent the entrance of air and sunlight. It does not draw so heavily on the moisture of the soil as the other cereals, which is a decided advantage to the clover and grasses. When used as a nurse
crop with alfalfa or common clo vers, it should be seeded at the rate of three pecks or one bushel of seed per acre. When it is desira ble to sow barley on very rich, mellow soil, it is well not to sow more than five pecks per acre, as the tendency is to lodge, if sown more thickly. Barley fills better than most cereals after lodging, but is fully as difficult to harvest, and therefore an effort should be made at the time of seeding to prevent lodging, when the soil is of doubtful character.
If land is very rich, and the cereal crops gener ally lodge, the over-abundance of fertility can be reduced readily by growing corn, wheat or millet. Often a crop of millet can be secured after a cutting of oat-hay has been taken from the land, which will usually put the land in proper condition for barley the following year. As a rule, the far mer will have more difficulty in supplying his land with the proper food elements as a preparation for a barley crop than in re ducing them.
Harvesting.— One of the chief arguments used against barley-culture in the past has been the many annoy ances experienced because of the beards while binding, threshing a n d other handling. This attitude dis played by farm ers led to the in troduction of beardless barleys, which have not as yet proceeded beyond the ex perimental stage. At the Wisconsin Station, through a several years' test, the beard less barleys were found to be weak in straw and poor yielders compared with the bearded barleys. The ker nels were much more shrunken, and did not look so healthy a n d vigorous. The grain of the beardless barleys weighed two to ten pounds less per measured bushel than that of the bearded barleys grown under the same conditions. The yield was fifteen bushels less per acre than that of the Manshury or Oderbrucker barleys on the Station farm. The ob jection to the beards by barley-growers is consid erably lessened since the advent of the harvester and self-feeder.
Barley is more easily injured by rain, dew or sunshine than the other cereal crops, and is often reduced in value from the maltster's standpoint one-half because of discoloration of the grain. The discoloration of the grain does not cause the feeding elements to deteriorate, to any great ex tent, and the farmer should feed such grain rather than try to force it on the market. To prevent discoloration, the grain should be harvested before the ripening has advanced too far. If put in round shocks, using about ten bundles in a shock and covering with two bundles as a cap, barley will cure nicely without discoloring unless heavy rains occur. The bundles used for capping can be drawn in and threshed separately from the bulk of the crop, and retained for feed or seed.