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Barley. One or more species of cereal plants yielding a grain used as food and also for making malt, from which are prepared beer, porter, and whisky. Barley has been known and cultivated from remote antiquity, and beer was made from it among the Egyptians. Excellent barley is produced in Britain. The species principally cultivated are Hordeum distichon, two-rowed barley; Hordeum vulgare, four-rowed barley; and Hordeum hexastichon, six-rowed, of which the small variety is the sacred barley of the ancients. The varieties of the four and six-rowed species are generally coarser than those of the two-rowed and adapted for a poorer soil and more exposed situation. Some of these are called bere or bigg. In Britain barley occupies about the same area as wheat, but in North America the extent of it as a crop is comparatively small, being in Canada, however, relatively greater than in the United States. Canadian barley is of very high quality. Barley is better adapted for cold climates than any other grain, and some of the coarser varieties are cultivated where no other cereal can be grown. Some species of the genus, three of which are natives of Britain, are mere grasses. Pot or Scotch barley is the grain deprived of the husk in a mill. Pearl barley is the grain polished and rounded and deprived of husk and pellicle. Patent barley is the farina obtained by grinding pearl barley. Barley water, a decoction of pearl barley, is used in medicine as possessing emollient, diluent, and expectorant qualities.

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