Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1917 — THE BARLEY ACREAGE. [ARTICLE]

THE BARLEY ACREAGE.

[National Crop Improvement Service.] In 1915 we raised nearly 229,000.000 bushels on 7,000,000 acres. We did not fare so well in 1916 on account of the bad season. On seven and one half million acres we raised 181,000,000 bushels. The price of barley will warrant a large increase in the acreage this year. Forty-eight million bushels of barley were malted and about 25,000,000 of that 48,000,000 was sent back in the shape of feed to the farm. As an economic problem, it would seem that the high price of barley for malting would greatly offset any feed-ing-value, if any, lost thereby. The season for planting barley is one week late, and therefore, barley can be put in to advantage up to the ■’Oth of May, and perhaps the 15th. It * generally the best farm practice to put barley in just ahead of corn planting. There is less labor in producing a field of barley than a field of corn and a great deal less risk. If you are short of labor on your farm it will pay you to put in some barley. If you pjit in all of your crops and still have some land idle, both oats and barley can be sown for hay or green feed which will be immensely valuable this year.