Barley Seeds - Common Grain

Major producing states, in descending order of production, include North Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Colorado, Wyoming, Virginia, Minnesota, Maryland, South Dakota, Oregon and Utah.

Next to wheat, the most valuable grain is barley, especially on light and sharp soils. It is a tender grain and easily hurt in any of the stages of its growth, particularly at seed time; a heavy shower of rain at that time will almost ruin a crop on the best-prepared land. In all the after-processes, greater pains and attention are required to ensure success than in the case of other grains. The harvest process is difficult, and often attended with danger; even the threshing of it is not easily executed with machines, because the awn generally adheres to the grain, and renders separation from the straw a troublesome task. Barley, in fact, is raised at greater expense than wheat, and generally speaking is a more hazardous crop. Except upon rich and genial soils, where climate will allow barley to be perfectly reared, it ought not to be cultivated.

Barley is chiefly taken after turnips, sometimes after peas and beans, but rarely by bad farmers either after wheat or oats, unless under special circumstances. When sown after turnips it is generally taken with one furrow, which is given as fast as the turnips are consumed, the ground thus receiving many benefits from the spring frosts. But often two, or more furrows are necessary for the fields last consumed, because when a spring drought sets in, the surface, from being poached by the removal or consumption of the crop, gets so hardened as to render a greater quantity of plowing, harrowing and rolling necessary than would otherwise be called for. When sown after beans and peas, one winter and one spring plowing are usually bestowed: but when after wheat or oats, three ploughings are necessary, so that the ground may be put in proper condition. These operations are very ticklish in a wet and backward season, and rarely, in that case, is the grower paid for the expense of his labor. Where land is in such a situation as to require three ploughings before it can be seeded with barley, it is better to summer-fallow it at once than to run the risks which seldom fail to accompany a quantity of spring labor. If the weather is dry, moisture is lost during the different processes, and an imperfect braid necessarily follows; if it is wet the benefit of plowing is lost, and all the evils of a wet seed time are sustained by the future crop. The quantity sown is different in different cases, according to the quality of the soil and other circumstances. Upon very rich lands eight pecks per acre [11 t/km²] are sometimes sown; twelve [16 t/km²] is very common, and upon poor land more is sometimes given. By good judges a quantity of seed is sown sufficient to ensure a full crop, without depending on its sending out offsets; indeed, where that is done few offsets are produced, the crop grows and ripens equally, and the grain is uniformly good.

• Seeds Per Package:
• 1 oz - Approximately 500 Seeds
• 1 lb - Approximately 8,000 Seeds
• 5 lb - Approximately 40,000 Seeds
• 25 lb - Approximately 200,000 Seeds