In 1877, the number of bushels of barley raised in the United States was 34,441,440, from 1,614, 654 acres, valued at $22,028,644. The average yield per acre being 21.3 bushels, the average price 63.9 cents per bushel, and the average value being $13 64 per acre. In 1879 the acres in barley were, 1,680,700; bushels harvested, 40,283,100; and the value, $23,714,411 an average of $14.11 per acre, and an average yield of 24 bushels, nearly, per acre. Barley is subject to many disabilities, other than the most prevalent one of discoloration of the grain in curing. Those, during growth, are smut, blight and mildew. Those, during har vesting and succeeding harvesting, are germina tion in wet weather. Discoloration is produced by dew and damp weather during curing, and from heating in the stack. To obviate this in the United States, when little danger of rain and dew is feared, the grain is placed in wind rows, set up in gavels without binding. Since the introduction of autornatic binders, binding is again coming into favor, the shocks being care fully capped if rain is feared, and also at night to prevent the heads taking dew. On the great plains of the West, in the valleys between the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada, and in California, where there is neither dew or rain during harvest, the brightest samples of barley are produced. There the grain is harvested,
bound and shocked. and either threshed imme diately from the shocks or else stacked and threshed after sweating, which always takes place in grain or hay when stacked. This sweat ing usually occcupies six weeks or two months, after which grain is usually dry enough for keeping in bulk or during transportation to dis tant markets. In threshing, there is an objec tion to that threshed with spiked cylinder machines. That threshed with the flails or tramped out by horses is less likely to have the germ broke,n, which injures it for malting or for seed. This, however, is too slow and tedious; hence machines, called beater machines, are pre ferred in threshing. The best soils for barley are rich sandy soils, or free loams, that is, loams not containing too much clay. All heavy (retentive) soils should be drained, else the outcome for barley or wheat need not be relied on to be remunerative. As a green crop for feeding, bar ley is better than rye. It should be fed sparingly to horses at first, as it is apt to purge them ; but after a time the quantity may be increased with out danger. For cattle, and especially for sheep, it is undoubtedly one of the best of forage crops. In the United States, however, it is but little sown except for its grain, and this alnaost ex clusively for malting.