BARLEY (AS. bailie, from berc, Engl. bear, barley ± lede, a leek. plant). Hordeum relllure. One of the most ancient of cultivated plants, of the natural order Craminece, or grasses. Its cultivation is mentioned in the Bible. It was grown by the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, and according to the Waiki, one of the sacred books of the Chinese, it was cultivated in China twenty centuries be fore the Christian Era. It has been found in the earliest Egyptian monuments and in the re mains of the lake-dwellings of Switzerland. Bar ley is found growing wild in western temperate Asia, and this region is considered as its original home. The range of hititmlc in which barley is cultivated is quite large, and practically equals the width of the temperate zones. It is grown as far north as Alaska, Iceland. and Norway, even reaching latitude 70° N., and it is also grown in Algeria, Egypt, India. and other countries with an almost equatorial climate. In Switzerland and Chile it ripens it an elevation of 5000 feet above the level of the sea, but it rarely ripens on the plateaus of Peru, which have an elevation of 9000 feet.
The preparation of the soil for barley does not differ materially from that for wheat. The land should he plowed fairly deep and thoroughly pulverized to form a well-prepared seed-bed. The soil should he porous, well drained, and of good fertility. Barley grows best on sandy and cal careous loans in northern latitudes, but in southern countries soils containing a little more clay give the best results. The plant has a com paratively short growing period, and the tilth and fertility of the soil should be such as to enable it to make a rapid growth. An excess of nitrogenous manures in the soil is injurious. When barnyard manure is applied direetly to the crop it should he well rotted. The best method, however, is to apply it to a previous crop, pref erably corn. For illustration, see colored plate CEREALS.
In the United States and Canada, as well as in the greater portion of Europe, barley is sown in spring, and in the countries along the Mediter ranean Sea it is sown in the fall. It is, however, also grown to some extent as a winter annual in the Southern States. The quantity of seed sown per acre varies from 2 to 3 bushels. Bar ley germinates at about the same temperature as wheat, but the young plant is more susceptible to cold than wheat; and a light frost, shortly after it is up, is often injurions. In the regions of the United States where spring wheat is grown, it is a common custom to sow it after wheat and before oats ale sown. It is generally
sown broadcast, but many farmers, especially in England, prefer to sow it in drills from S to 10 inches apart. The crap is now generally har vested with the self-binder. As soon as the sheaves are dry enough, they are stacked or hauled into barns to prevent exposure to rains or damp weather, which would injure the color of the grain and materially reduce its value. Barley ripens earlier than spring wheat, and is harvested usually just before that crop. When grown for malting purposes, it should not be har vested before it is thoroughly ripe.
The different varieties of barley, considered by many botanists as all belonging to one species, comprise four distinct types, namely, Two-rowed Barley, Hordeum, distiebon ; Four-rowed Barley, Hal-deem rulgare; Six-rowed Barley. Hordeum hexastichon ; and Naked Barley, Hordeent distiehoa andem. These different types have been considered as distinct species. The varieties of barley grown in the United States are generally of the six-rowed type, while in Europe the two rowed type predominates. The finest varieties of malting barley, including Chevalier barley and the various selections made from it, which are the most popular for malting purposes, belong to the t•o-rowed type. The four-rowed varieties, frequently called here or bigg in England, were formerly extensively used for malt, but are 110W being more and more replaced by the two-rowed varieties. The characters which determine a good malting barley are composition, capacity, and energy of germination, plumpness and weight of grains, meatiness, proportion of husk (ghillies adhering to grain), color, smell, and absence of mutilated kernels. In malting, barleys of a high starch content and a low protein content are sought. Quick and even germination produces the best malt, hence the brewer's interest in the state of ripeness and the absence of injured grains, conditions which directly affect germina tion. Plumpness and weight of the grains and the proportion of husk give indications as to a high or a low percentage of starch. Mealiness is important. as it insures a much more ready transformation of the starch into soluble com pounds than when the grains are hard and flinty. A musty smell and a stained or discolored ap pearance of the grain are evidences of injury, and materially reduce the value of barley from the brewer's point of view. The best malting barleys of the world are produced in eastern and south eastern England. The well-known chevalier va riety was originated in Suffolk in 1819.