Barley
Barley should be more widely grown in the Northern and Western states. It is a protection to our grain supply, as it produces a good, nongultinous flour and can be milled by wheatmills with little change of machinery. It is an excellent grain feed for stock, being almost the equal to corn. It, however, competes with corn in few places, as it is mostly grown outside the limits of profitable corn culture. It produces more pounds to the acre than oats or wheat. If necessary, it can be seeded later than spring wheat, and hence interferes little with wheat acreage in the spring-wheat region. It supplies the needed grain feed necessary for the increase of livestock, which sometime must come with diversified farming in the areas where grain farming is now the only enterprise. The best lands for barley are well-drained soils that are not sandy. The best returns are obtained from early seeding. The best methods of preparation are fall plowing in the humid-spring region, disked corn ground in the Great Plains, and summer fallow in sections where the crop is winter seeded. The best method of seeding is with a drill, and the best method of harvesting is with a binder. The grain should not be thrashed to close, as broken kernels lower the market value. The best yielding varieties are Tennessee Winter in the humid-winter region, Manchuria and Oderbrucker in the humid-spring region, and Coast, Hanchen, Mariout, White Smyrna, Chevalier, and Trebi in the arid region." -- p. 2