+9 5
ly with bear and oats, according to the principles of modernhusbandry.
It is alleged in the Report of Inverness , that when the besttwo-rowed barley which can be procured, is sown on someland of that county, the produce, alter three or four years’sowing, degenerates entirely into big or four-rowed bear *.This information, if correct, would imply that big is not adistinct species from two-rowed barley, but only a degenera-tion or a variety accommodated by Nature to the soil andclimate. The accuracy of the alleged fact may, however, bedoubted ; there being cause to presume, that owing to thresh-ing in the same barn with big, it had become blended ; andtlie big being more early ripe, and perhaps better adapted tothe soil and climate, had gradually supplanted the barley.
Six-rowed barley .—This is quite a distinct species from thetwo rowed and four-rowed, and is known to botanists underthe name of hordcum hexastichon, or six-rowed barley. Itforms a beautiful spike or ear, having six rows of seeds, andoften contains as many as seventy-two grains in one car;while two-rowed barley seldom exceeds from twenty-eight tothirty-two. Its reed or straw is considerably stronger andmore abundant on the acre than that of four-rowed bear; andas it grows rapidly and ripens early, it is certainly well en-titled to at least a fair trial in the Highlands and Islands ofScotland. It is the hardiest of all grains; and as it is re-markable for withstanding the inclemency of wintei;, it is some-times called hortleum hybernum , or winter barley. This is theprevailing barley of Ingria and other parts of Russia , as farnorth as any other grain is cultivated; and though little knownm Britain , seems to deserve attention from some small trialsthat have been made of it f. For such, and other importantinvestigations, it is desiruble, that the Board of Agriculturehad two or three small experimental farms under confidentialmanagers, where the properties of different grains, those of
| Walt. IL'brid. I. p. 224.
* Inverness lL*p. p. 138.