desirable than oats with field peas on account of the weakness of the straw.

457. Rate of Seeding.-Wide variations in rate of seeding, ranging from one and one-half to four bushels of seed per acre, have given the best results in different trials. Two bushels is the usual quantity of seed sown per acre. It seems probable, however, that seeding at the rate of ten pecks per acre will give the best average results. The number of seeds per bushel is usually rather less than in wheat and oats. Barley tillers less strongly than oats, and also less strongly at least than winter wheat. Seeding thinly enough to induce excessive tillering may cause irregular and later ripening.

458. Time of Sowing. The Central Experimental Farm, at which the conditions correspond to those of Ontario and Quebec, sowed two varieties of barley at six weekly periods for ten years, beginning each year as early as the land was fit to receive the seed. Seeding either the first or second week gave the best results. The decrease in yield after the second week was marked. In these provinces seeding usually should be finished before May first. The Ontario Agricultural College obtained best results every year during four years between April 22 and 25. Early sowing was not found so important for the Maritime Provinces, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories or British Columbia. The seeding should be finished in these provinces generally between May 15 and 25.1

The barley plant when young is rather more susceptible to cold than wheat and possibly than oats. A light frost just after it is up is likely to injure it. In the spring wheat regions barley is generally sown after wheat is sown, and before oats are sown, although in some sections barley is sown after oats. It is probable that oats would suffer more than barley from a few days' delay in seeding. At the Minnesota Station the difference in

1 Can. Cent. Expt. Farms Bul. 21; Can. Expt. Farms Rpt. 1899; Ont. Agr. Col. and Expt. Farms Rpt. 1898.

favor of early seeding of barley was much less than with spring wheat, oats and flax.1 The Tennessee Station found September decidedly the best month for the fall seeding of barley.2

459. Seed Selection.-The Ontario Agricultural College has obtained an average for six years of fifty-four bushels from sowing large plump seed; fifty bushels from small plump seed; forty-six bushels from shrunken seed, and forty-three bushels per acre from sowing broken grains produced by the usual process of threshing. The Tennessee Station sowed large seed that were twenty-eight per cent heavier than small seed, and obtained fifty bushels from the larger seed and forty bushels per acre from the small seed. The weight of the individual grains was, however, practically identical in both cases. Large grains from large heads gave a larger yield of grain than from medium or small heads.*

460. Harvesting.- Barley that has been allowed to ripen fully will be likely to have the most mealy endosperm, and most likely to sprout uniformly. On the other hand, if allowed to ripen fully, there is more danger of discoloration from rain and dews, and as this character is counted so important in fixing the commercial grade, early cutting is frequently practiced.

If bundles are shocked promptly and shocks are carefully capped with two bundles, ripening may proceed, and both ends -full maturation and bright color-be measurably secured. (160) Formerly the barley crop was usually cut with a self-rake reaper and laid off in small gavels or in continuous swaths. These were allowed to dry a day or so, as required, and then raked together, or, more usually, placed in piles by hand with a large wooden, four-tined fork. The aim was to get the barley

dry as quickly as possible, so that it might be subject as little as possible to the rains and dews before reaching the stack. The severity of the beards and the shortness of the culms made it almost impossible to bind by hand. With the self-binder, it is the easiest of our cereal crops to bind. The shocking is now the most unpleasant operation. Barley of as good color is not obtained ordinarily when the sheaves are bound as when they are left open, chiefly because it is necessary to allow it to be long exposed to the weather before stacking or threshing. Considerable improvement in color may be effected by threshing the cap sheaves separately, and using the grain from them for food for domestic animals.

461. Threshing.-Pieces of broken grains containing no embryos are valueless for the production of malt, since their contents do not become soluble. Moreover,

they are harmful, since such grains become covered with mould, serving as a center of infection to the sprouting grains, and thus injuring the malt. Grains that have the ends of the hulls broken off too closely; a portion of the hull peeled off; or grains that are merely bruised, although germinating, are

showing the influence of threshing upon perfect grains. Assuming the cylinder to strike the spike in the direction AB, beards on left will be broken off properly, while those on the right may carry a part of the husk or flowering glume with them. (After Baird.)

also liable to be attacked with mould. Portion of spike of barley, Special care should be taken, therefore, in threshing barley, not to break or bruise the grains. It is better to leave a little of the beard on than to injure the grains. This will reduce the weight per bushel, but maltsters are coming to recognize that high weight per bushel is less important than injured grains, and that no harm results from leaving on a little of the beard. Care should be taken to regulate the number and closeness of the concaves of the threshing machine and not to run the cylinder at too high a rate of speed. Since

the beard is on the flowering glume, or that portion of the hull farthest from the center of the spike, any pressure from without will break the beard off without disturbing the hull, while pressure from within outward is liable to peel off a portion of the hull. Obviously the extent of such injury will depend upon the condition of the grain at the time of threshing.

II. FUNGOUS DISEASES AND INSECT ENEMIES.

462. FUNGOUS DISEASES.-Barley is subject to black stem rust and orange leaf rust, as in wheat. (146) The leaves are also attacked by the conidial stage (Oidium monilioides Lv.) of the powdery mildew (Erysiphe graminis D. C.), whose greyish, mouldy tufts cause discoloration of the tissue. The loose or naked smut (Ustilago nuda (Jens.) Kell. and Sw.) not infrequently reduces the spikelets to a sooty mass of spores. The covered smut (U. hordei (Pers.) Kell. and Sw.) is less common. The modified hot water treatment may be used for both smuts. Soak the seed grain for four hours in cold water, let stand four hours in wet sacks, then immerse for five minutes in water at a temperature of 130° F., which is three degrees lower than for wheat. (148) It has been shown that formalin solution will kill covered smut.1

463. INSECT ENEMIES.-Barley is comparatively free from insect attacks. However, barley probably suffers more from attacks of chinch bugs than any other cereal; whether it is because the chinch bugs prefer the barley or the barley is less able to resist their attacks is less clear. (151) The Hessian fly also attacks barley, although ordinarily it is not so destructive as in wheat (152); so also does the wheat bulb worm. (153) Barley is also attacked by a joint worm (Isosoma hordei Harris), which provariety; B, six-rowed variety. One- duces galls at or near the nodes or joints of

Loose smut on barley: A, two-rowed

third natural size.

the culm.

1 E. S. R. XII, p. 457.

III. USE.

464. Use.-Barley is chiefly used as a food for domestic animals and for malting purposes. Barley meal is a suitable food for all classes of domestic animals wherever maize would be found desirable, which it nearly equals in feeding 'value. In Europe it takes the place largely which maize does in America. In this country, its use as a stock food is not general as compared with maize or oats, except in the Pacific Coast States, where it is largely raised, not only for its grain but also for hay. Barley is little used in this country as an article of human food, principally as pearl barley. Pearl barley is the naked kernel, the hull having been removed by special machinery. Barley straw is at least equal in feeding value to oat straw. When used as bedding, one part of wheat straw has been found to absorb 2.2 parts of water, oat straw 2.28 parts, while one part of barley straw has been found to absorb 2.85 parts of water.1

465. Use for Malting.—While oats and wheat are sometimes used in the production of malt, barley is preferred because it develops less insoluble proteids, has greater peptonizing and diastatic power. It is also preferred to wheat on account of its hull. (440) Maize is not desirable on account of its high per cent of fat. While neither maize nor rice is used for malting, both are largely used in the manufacture of beer as raw cereals, the rice having its hull removed and the maize being degerminated. Both are used with malt.

466. By-Products.-There are two by-products in the production of malt extract: (1) malt sprouts and (2) brewers' grains. Both are placed upon the market in the wet and dry state. For sanitary reasons, they are best purchased in the latter state. Malt sprouts, as the name implies, are the sprouts or young barley plants which have been sprouted for the purpose of changing the starch of the barley into a soluble form where it 1 E. S. R. V, p. 144