Barley field

“ When the spring is past they take them again from pasture, and then they get neither grass nor hay during the rest of the year; barley is their only food, except now and then a little straw. The mane of the foal is always clipped when about a year or eighteen months old, in order to make it stronger and thicker; they begin to break them at two years old, or two years and a half at farthest; they never saddle or bridle them till at that age, and then they are always kept ready saddled at the door of the tent, from morning till sunset, in order to be prepared against any surprise. ”

“ The raising of rye becomes in its turn impossible in regions too cold and too sterile. There then remains, as a last resort, barley, the hardiest of cereals, which is found in the mountains until we reach the neighborhood of perpetual snow, and can be raised even in the frigid climate of the extreme North. ”

“ The field this year was sown with barley, and this trenched part with the rest: so far as this trench extended, there are considerable quantities of oats, of various kinds, sprung up among the barley, the seeds of which must have remained there more than 1000 years. Without the trenched ground there is not a head of oats to be seen. Orders have been given to preserve these oat plants. ”

“ Our way wound through a succession of valleys rich with fields of rice and barley, while along the roads shrubberies, which at home are cultivated with great care, grew in wild profusion—the wisteria, the honeysuckle, and the eglantine. ”

“ Approaching it from the south, one gradually ascends the long slope from Hertford, and suddenly at the summit has before one a far-stretching view over the flat country of Bedfordshire and adjoining counties. The road descends steeply and passes through the Clothall common fields. At the time of my visit the harvest (of barley) was being gathered in; the arrangement of the field was clearly visible. The long, narrow strips of stubble, never quite straight, and never quite of uniform width, were divided by “balks” of grass, grown tall and gone to seed. ”

“ Old Barley might be as old as the hills, and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to overflowing. ”

“ Up to about 1874 there were some eighteen yeomen farmers in the parish, which comprises 2,382 acres, fully three-quarters at that time being arable. In addition, the lands belonging to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were divided into small holdings, and all these were intermixed. The system of cultivation was very simple. The arable land was divided into two fields, one known as the “white corn field,” growing wheat or barley, the other as the “black corn field,” growing pulse or some other crop. ”

“ Ailesworth (N. Hants.) , 13 Ailesworth Heath, 17 Alconbury (Hunts.) , 123 Amesbury (Wilts.) , 235 Arden (Warwick) , 205 Area of surviving common fields, 189 Area of recently enclosed common fields, 191 Ashby Magna, 208 Averham (Notts.) , 137 Avon, the Wiltshire, 112 Avon, the Warwickshire, 205 Axholme, Isle of, 52 Aylesbury, Vale of, 221 Babraham (Cambs.) , 210 Baird and Foot, “Middlesex,” 218 “Balks,” 15, 63 “Bancroft Field,” 61 “Barley Field,” 14 Barnady (Suffolk) , 128 Barrowden (Rutland) , 64 Bartlow (Cambs.) ”

“ There is no prescribed rule of cultivation, but the customary course is:—first year, wheat; second, turnips; third, barley sown with clover, the land under this crop being “new ley land” after the barley is reaped; and in the fourth year the land remains under clover and is called “old ley land” or “ollay land.”
The peculiar feature, characteristic of Norfolk common field agriculture, is that the owner of the Abbey Farm in the next parish, has the right to pasture sheep on the half year lands of Runton ”

“ Barley and potatoes had been grown at Fort Norman at the mouth of Great Bear lake river, about latitude 65°, and even at Fort Yukon, in the Arctic circle, barley is a sure crop. These are not particular points noted for their good soil, but located solely for the fur trade. Five-sixths of the country is just as good as these points, and will in future produce as good crops. There is no point east of the Mackenzie suitable for agriculture. ”

“ The road on to Barley is of a switchback kind, finally rising to the ridge where Barley is perched, overlooking a wild treeless country of downs. Barley is a little village as thoroughly agricultural as its name hints, and consists of but a few houses, mostly thatched, with a not very interesting church on a by-way, and a very striking inn, the Fox and Hounds, on the main road. It is the sign of the inn, rather than the house itself, that is so notable, for it [Pg 108] is one of those gallows signs, stretching across the road, that are now becoming so few. ”

“ T. S. C. LOWE. of Golden Gate Division No. 364, of Oakland, Cal., also a member of the committee.
Following the course of Los Angeles River as we leave the “City of Angels” behind us, we pass for quite a distance through a fine farming country, where hundreds of acres of barley are being gathered for hay into great heaps and stacks.
“Brother Freet,” I ask, as we sit near the wide-open door of the baggage compartment looking out on the fleeting landscape, “do they feed their stock altogether on barley hay in California?” “Not entirely. What makes you think so?” is the inquiring answer. ”

“ Barley has been sowed in small quantities, and does better than can be expected; because that Grain requires the Ground to be very well work'd with repeated Ploughings, which our general Way of breaking the Earth with Hoes, can, by no means, perform, tho' in several Places we have a light, rich, deep, black Mould, which is the particular Soil in which Barley best thrives. ”

“ Across the brook began the immense pattern of agriculture, white chequering of barley stubble, brown squares of wheat, khaki patches of pasture, red stripes of fallow, with the woodland and the tiny village dark like ornaments, leading away to the distance, right to the hills, where the check-pattern grew smaller and smaller, till, in the blackish haze of heat, far off, only the tiny white squares of barley stubble showed distinct.
“Eh, I say, here’s a rabbit hole!” cried Anne suddenly. “Should we watch if one comes out? ”

“ But Burley had only women and children and old men on whom to practice his earnest and voluble French, for everybody else was at the front.
Children adored him—adored his big, silver spurs, his cartridge belt and pistol, the metal mule decorating his tunic collar, his six feet two of height, his quick smile, the even white teeth and grayish eyes of this American muleteer, who always had a stick of barley sugar to give them or an amazing trick to perform for them with a handkerchief or coin that vanished under their very noses at the magic snap of his finger.
Old men gossiped willingly with him ”

“ Edwin Barley.
The news had spread; the servants crowded in; some of the women began to shriek. It became one indescribable scene of confusion, exclamations, and alarm. Mr. Edwin Barley turned round, in anger.
"Clear out, all of you!" he said, roughly. "What do you mean by making this uproar? You men can stay in the barn, you may be wanted," he added, to the out-door labourers.
They crowded out at the hall-door; the servants disappeared through the opposite one. Mr. Edwin Barley was one who brooked no delay in being obeyed. Miss Delves remained, and she drew near. ”

“ The chief problem in mountain travelling is fodder for the animal rather than food for the man. In the valleys and part way up the punas, or table-lands, fresh alfalfa may be had. But in the higher sierras this is lacking, and it is necessary to carry a stock of barley. In some places where barley can be raised it runs to straw and does not mature into the grain, so that the local supply is not to be depended on. ”

“ There is something really fearful in what most of us have read, and some of us have seen, of the way in which a certain order of farmers go to work to make their crops grow.
When barley is to be sown, it is probably just at the time when there should be young broods in the rookeries, and in trees and hedges and old walls all round about. The old rooks follow the sowers, and are busy in the fresh-moved soil; the farmer concludes they are gobbling up his grain, and he calls them names, and sets a boy to scare them off, or a man to blaze away at them in most vindictive style. ”

“ I was to tell them that, though all damage to crops was to be rigidly avoided, yet if by any chance a mule did so far forget himself as to nibble a blade or two of young barley, the matter need not on the present occasion be taken too seriously, as the only ground available for closing up the transport was the ground on which that nice young barley was growing. So while 'all day long the noise of battle rolled' a hundred feet above them and two hundred yards away, the transport animals did themselves 'top-hole' on the enemy's best young barley ”

“ The barley-grass is cut by the grooms, by tearing handfuls of it against a curved toothed sickle fixed upright in a piece of wood, and is given from two to four inches long. As the horse is given “teleet,” his grain is diminished, and, when he is on full grass, stopped altogether; as he gets more and more grass, his teeth get blunt, and do not break the grain, and on leaving off grass his barley has to be soaked.
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A horse on grass cannot do any serious work, and the gentlest canter will put him in a lather. ”

“ The zone of loess and some wind-swept or calcareous areas near the sea or on the hills remained relatively clear of forests and dry enough for occupation by man, and on these areas men practised the art of herding animals, moving from pasture to pasture, as circumstances required or, increasingly, with the cycle of the seasons. There were possibly already cultivators beginning to grow barley as a supplement to herding or hunting. We should, however, be careful not to argue that the beginning of cultivation necessarily implies {90} settling down in one place ”

“ Those rivers that move through midland meads present a broad, calm surface, at the same level from side to side; they flow without sound, and if you stood behind a thick hedge you would not know that a river was near. They dream along the meads, toying with their forget-me-nots, too idle even to make love to their flowers vigorously. The brown Barle enjoys his life, and splashes in the sunshine like boys bathing—like them he is sunburnt and brown. ”

“ At this northerly spot, situated in lat. 64° 40′, a small quantity of green barley, and of potatoes, almost as big as pigeon eggs, is now annually raised. I was afterwards surprised to find this vain attempt to vanquish nature made even at Fort Good Hope, with turnips and radishes. Next day our hunters cast up about noon. We hired three Dog-ribs to guide and complete the crew of the luggage-boat to Dease River, at the north-eastern extremity of Great Bear Lake, where our winter quarters were to be established. ”

“ Possibly the clearing of the forest may produce a modification of the weather. At present barley grows better, and there is reason to believe that it may be cultivated successfully very far to the north. ”

“ Like wheat and oats, barley occurs in spring and winter varieties, but as in the case of oats only one winter variety has as yet found its way into the approved list of dry-farm crops. The best dry-farm spring barleys are those belonging to the beardless and hull-less types, though the more common varieties also yield well, especially the six-rowed beardless barley. The winter variety is the Tennessee Winter, which is already well distributed over the Great Plains district. ”

“ Passing along the Ridgeway to the east, we soon come to cultivated land. The downs, strictly so called, are no more; Lincolnshire farmers have been imported, and the long fresh slopes are sheep-walks [63] no more, but grow famous turnips and barley. One of these improvers lives over there at the "Seven Barrows" [64] farm, another mystery of the great downs. There are the barrows still, solemn and silent, like ships in the calm sea, the sepulchres of some sons of men. ”

“ Before we came in sight of the little town of Wrington, we entered an avenue thickly bordered with luxuriant evergreens, which led directly to the cottage of Barley Wood. As we drew nearer the building, a thick hedge of roses, jessamine, woodbine, and clematis, fringed the smooth and sloping lawn on one side; on the other, laurel and laurustinus were in full and beautiful verdure. From the shrubbery the ground ascends, and is well wooded by flowing larch, dark cypress, spreading chestnut, and some hardy forest trees. ”

“ Mamma nearly boxed my ears for it."
Watching her opportunity, Georgina stole away, snatched her hat and a garden mantle from the peg in the hall, and went out. Where was she going, this wild girl? Need you ask? In her impulsive, free, careless fashion, she was hastening to the Barley Mow, to see Frederick St. John.
It sounds very bad, no doubt to the reader's ears. The name of the "Barley Mow" itself would be enough to alarm modest people, without the gentleman. But in this quiet little spot, the Barley Mow was as sedate and respectable a house to enter as any private one ”

“ In the eighth decade of the 19th century, the value of the wheat product had come to exceed that of the annual output of gold. Barley has always been very important. The acreage given to it in 1899 was one-fourth the total cereal acreage, and San Francisco in 1902–1904 was the shipping point of the larger part of American exported barley, of (roughly) three-quarters in 1902, seven-eighths in 1903 and four-fifths in 1904. In 1906 California produced 38,760,000 bushels of barley, valued at $20,930,400. ”