500
thick. These are fired or baked upon a girdle or flat plateof iron hung over a clear fire, on which they are frequentlyturned, and they are afterwards thoroughly dried or toastedbefore the fire. But this species of bread is very fast fallinginto disuse, and will soon be entirely abandoned in favour ofwheaten bread. In some parts of Scotland , bread is madefrom barley flour, bolted or sifted through a fine sieve, andbaked with yeast, exactly like bread from wheat-flour: and in.other places what are called supple cakes are made from bar-ley-flour, mixed up with boiling water or milk, and fired onthe girdle. These are made very thin, and generally eatenwarm with butter as a species of tea-bread.
SECT. IV.
$ 1. Soil and preparation .—Oats are generally grown uponnewly broken up ley or grass land, but sometimes after sum-mer fallow, where the soil is not rich enough for wheat, or af-ter pulse or turnips, according to circumstances in soil, sea-son, or situation. In all cases, except after fallow, pulse, orturnips, one ploughing is only given, and the seed is almostuniversally sown in the broadcast way, and harrowed in theusual manner. Oats are hardly ever drilled, as the drill ma-chine cannot work with any freedom on once ploughed ley ;but they are sometimes drilled when sown after turnips, moreespecially when the soil is infested with annual weeds. Dib~Ming is hitherto hardly known in Scotland except by report;and perhaps the population is too scanty to encourage the at-tempt to introduce that practice into Scotch husbandry.
§ 2. Seed process. —Th e' time of sowing is from the begin-ning or middle of March to the end of April, according to