SECTION IV.-WHEAT.

THE only fields of wheat which we have met with in our tour through the Western Hebrides, were within a few miles of Islay House, belonging to Shawfield or his tenants *. They looked very well, and appeared to be managed the same way with wheat crops in the Lothians and in Lanarkshire. Wheat generally turns out particularly clean and sound after potatoes. We heard no complaints of smut or any other disease in this crop, nor is there any peculiarity worth mentioning in the management of the ground. It is of course sown on the strongest land, and either after a fallow or a green crop.

SECTION V.-RYE.

This species of grain, the main support of the tenantry and lower classes of people in the north of continen

There were many in Bute ; but as that island and Arran are to be surveyed separately, we are not so particular in our account of them as we are of the islands commonly called the Hebrides, or the Western Hebrides.

tal Europe, from Siberia to Amsterdam, is pretty generally sown on the sandy districts of the Western Isles.. It is a hardy grain, and not only very easy to thrash, but also productive in meal in an eminent degree. Its most powerful recommendation, however, here is, that it will grow on very poor and exhausted land, and give some few returns, where no other grain would give one. It is therefore used to deal the unhappy field the coup de grace of sterility. A half boll or three bushels sows an acre, and the acre returns two bolls or four seeds, very rarely six or seven, though it sometimes gives 10. It often fails altogether; and its place reremains an unsightly scab on the skin of the farm for five or six years. Many acute and sensible farmers are of opinion that the cultivation of rye should entirely cease in the Western Isles, the soil and climate of which they alledge to be unfavourable to that grain.

SECTION VI.-BARLEY.

BARLEY,* or more particularly Bigg, or Bear,† forms one half of the Hebridian crops. The four row grain

ed

* Hordeum distichon.— LINN.

Hordeum Vulgare.--LINN.

ed is universally sown, excepting in Gigha, and on a few farms in Islay, where we met with the real barley with long two row grained ears.* The reason urged for preferring the inferior species to the better kind is, that it is fourteen days or three weeks earlier in ripening, and that it does not require such rich manure, or so fertile a soil as the genuine barley.

1. Tillage, The common practice is to give the land one simple furrow, either with the caschrom or the plough, and immediately to throw in the seed broadcast at the rate of a boll and a half or 24 pecks per Scots acre, and then immediately to harrow in the seed without any grass seeds, and leave it to the care of providence. Instead of such management, the land ought to be ploughed at least twice, and if possible thrice before sowing, and after every ploughing it ought to receive a complete harrowing.

2. Manure. The whole range of the Long Island, as well as Coll and Tyree, and some parts of Skye, depend upon the bounty of the ocean for the greater part of their manure. Sea weeds constitute a very valuable stimulant by the alkali which they contain, and accordingly yield an astonishing increase on the barley fields

* Barley, being the general term, and vernacular in Scotland, we use the name to denote the Species of grain here treated of, and which is universally used in England as the denomination of the whole genus.

to which they are applied. The ground intended for barley and potatoes is covered over three or four inches deep with these weeds in November, December, January, and February, and thus remains until it gets the seed furrow. By the end of April, the soil has absorbed the portion of alkali which escaped evaporation by the air and destruction by the rains, and shews on its surface but a few shrivelled tangles or harder parts of the weeds, which oppose no obstacle to the plough or spade. To any man who sees this process, it will appear demonstrable that three-fourths at least of the manure are lost to the land by mismanagement. Were the fields, intended to be manured, ploughed either previously to the sea-weeds being spread over them, so as to admit an instantaneous and intimate absorption of the alkali through the open surface, or were they ploughed immediately after the manure has been laid on, so as to incorporate the manure with the soil, the whole substance of this valuable stimulant would be secured. Nor is the winter scarcely ever so severe as to prevent ploughing; and the far greater portion of the arable land is by nature dry enough to admit of the use of horses, or might very easily be sufficiently drained for that purpose.

In Islay and the improved isles, lime is used as manure for barley, on all soils excepting such as are very sandy or sharp. One great advantage of lime is, that it destroys the most formidable enemy of barley in these regions, the grub-worm. Perhaps the very best manure for this grain in the Hebridian soil and climate, would be a compost of moss, dung, and sea-weeds, where lime cannot be easily procured; and where such can be used at a cheap rate, a compost of lime, moss,

and

and sea-weeds. The proportions of each ingredient must vary according to the quality of the soil, and a number of circumstances ascertainable only by practice and experience.

3. Drilling.-Barley has occurred no where in drills excepting in Collonsay, where it promised extremely well. This method ought to be followed on very thin sharp soils, where the heat of summer, and the extreme drought in June and July, often parch up the ground, and affect the seed, which, by being sown broadcast, lies nearer the surface than it would do if properly drilled. It is not fully ascertained which plan is followed by the greatest increase; but we have found the fact uniformly and universally admitted, that drilled barley, like other drilled white crops, is later than those which are sown broad-cast. The saving in seed is stated at fully one-third, which certainly merits attention, and which, as soon as a constant custom of changing the seed shall be adopted, will prove of considerable importance to the farmer.

4. Time.-Barley is sown in the end of April and till that of May, and reaped in the latter end of August and in September, and sometimes in October. We found in Lewis and North Uist some fields of barley cut down on the 12th of August, which had been sown on the 29th of May, and had ripened completely in ten weeks from the day of sowing. It has happened that barley has ripened in Lewis within nine weeks, and we have known it to do so in the northern provinces of Norway and Sweden in eight weeks. The shortness of the