In Landrace 1 – bere the query arose as to whether there was a bere line from the neolithic (late stone age), a line of transmission of bere (barley) seed from the first settlers in these regions to the present day. Another question was when bere and barley became distinct – they are the same plant species, but just look a bit different, close up.
So since bere is our most famous and still-grown-in the-wild-but-only-just cereal landrace, the Living Field will explore the bere line as a fairly random walk through time, backwards and forwards that is, putting facts and photos on this web site as we find them.
At some point in the future, we might order them into a chronological list, starting with the earliest and ending with the most recent, but ‘random’ suits us for now.
As an introduction, here are some photographs of bere barley on the left compared with a 2-row barley on the right.
Links to articles
Introduction to the Living Field’s work on bere and other ancient grains
Bere heads in 2016, the lower mature, the upper still green, and from the latter, a few green grains with awns attached, contrasted with clean, dry grain from a previous year
Contact: geoff.squire@hutton.ac.uk
{Last update: 18 October 2021 with new images and links]
Thomas Thorburn used diagrams to get a point across: for example, diagrams in the form of squares to represent large numbers of things. If the reader was no good with figures, then they might get a better idea by comparing two squares of different size to see which was larger and which smaller, and by how much.
His “Diagrams, Agricultural Statistics of Scotland for 1854” was based on agricultural census data collated by the Highland Society and gives areas grown with various crops and output in total bushels of grain and in bushels of grain per acre, including those for barley and bere.
Title page of ‘Diagrams’ by Thomas Thorburn, set by the Living Field on a greyscale image of an Orkney bere field (Living Field)
Bere (or bigg) and barley are clearly distinguished in the pages of Diagrams as different crops.
Summary
The agricultural census in Diagrams tells us much about bere and barley in the 1850s.
Bere was grown mostly in the north and west, but occurred in most agricultural census regions. Farmers throughout Scotland would have been familiar with it.
The area in Scotland sown with bere was just less than 10% or one-tenth that sown with barley.
Yields of barley and bere, when expressed in modern units were both 1.5-2.0 tonnes per hectare (t/ha), compared to present national average yields of 5-6 t/ha for spring barley.
In Scotland as a whole, bere yields were a bit less than those of barley (about 80% or 90% depending on how yield was calculated), but where they were both grown in the same area, as in some northern and north-eastern regions, their yields were similar.
Bere has now almost disappeared as a commercial crop, whereas barley is the most widely grown corn in Scotland, going mainly to malting and animal feed.
Where was bere grown in the 1850s?
The area grown with bere in 1854 was about 9% of the area of barley. So in the whole of Scotland, just over ten times more barley was grown than bere. And while most bere was grown in the north and north-east, in places such as Aberdeen, Orkney and Shetland and Caithness, it was grown in a small area in many other places, including areas such as Haddington which are considered to be high-yielding. (The names Aberdeen, Orkney and Shetland, Haddington, refer to census areas.)
Here are some figures. The area grown with bere in census regions was, at the top end, Aberdeen 5322 ac, Orkney and Shetland 2922 ac, Caithness 2710 ac, Argyll 1888 ac; and at the bottom end, Perth 502 ac, Haddington 40 ac and Roxburgh 6 ac. The abbreviation ‘ac’ refers to acre, which is about 40% of the hectare, the present metric unit (1 acre = 0.4047 hectare; a hectare can be visualised as a square of 100 m by 100 m).
For barley, the figures at the top end were Fife 27,938 ac, Forfar 25,222 ac, Perth 23, 710 ac, Berwick 16,576 ac; while figures in the north and west were Orkney and Shetland 149 ac, Caithness 265 ac and Bute 389 ac.
What did it yield
Thorburn gives yield in bushels per acre, bushels being a measure of dry volume, used for grain, and acre being a unit of area widely used until recently, and still used locally. He gives the total bushels produced in each census region (from which bushels per acre can be calculated by dividing bushels by the area of the region) and in a separate diagram, he gives bushels per acre for each region. The two estimates are not always the same, so here we use Thorburn’s bushels per acre figures rather than our calculated figures.
Using standard conversion factors and our estimate of 1 bushel of bere = 21.8 kilograms (see Light on bushel), the national average yield of bere was 1.77 t/ha (tonnes per hectare) and of barley 1.93 t/h, so the yield of bere was just more than 90% (nine tenths) of the yield of barley.
The yields vary between regions, but where both barley and bere are grown together, especially in the north and west, the yields are not that different. In Caithness, for example, barley is 36.0 bushels per acre and bere 36.5 bushels per acre.
Caution
In Diagrams as it appears online, there is no description of the methods by which the census was conducted. It is presumed the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland did the work and handed the information to Thorburn who constructed his diagrams.
The yields of crops would have been difficult to measure consistently in the field or on the farm. Harvested grain differs in water-content depending on the weather, the locality and the variety of the crop. And grain also will differ in how ‘clean’ it is , how free of the bits and pieces of plant material that may be harvested with it. Today, yields reported in the annual census are given to a stated water content; so if the actual content measured in the combine harvester or in the grain store differs from this stated content, then the mass has to be corrected to allow comparison of near-dry mass between fields, farms and regions. No indication is given in Thorburn of how the dryness and cleanliness of the grain were standardised across regions.
The way the bushel was measured also probably varied. Perhaps some farms used a standard bushel measure (e.g. a barrel or basket) whereas others might have used a container, such as a cart, that they knew held a given number of bushels.
And then the areas sown with the crops were stated very precisely, sometime to several hundred thousand acres and three quarters. But were all fields measured so precisely? What if crops were grown in strips or parts of fields – was the area grown with each strip or part measured? It is difficult today to measure accurately the area of all fields in Scotland sown with a particular crop – and that is with all the official demands to record what was grown where and when.
Despite these uncertainties, the census was a major achievement. It must have taxed the Highland Society’s officials and local organisers. And they probably did have a very good appreciation of areas and outputs. But in some regions they appear to have come up against difficulties that were too great – for example, the yield of bere in Orkney and Shetland is omitted from Thorburn, despite much bere being grown there.
Sources and References
Thorburn T. 1855. Diagrams, Agricultural Statistics of Scotland for 1854. London: Effingham Wilson.
Scanned images of Diagrams appear online, for example through the Bodlean Libraries at the University of Oxford, as in the following pdf file: http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/590979280.pdf But not all the pages appear to be viewable!
The Scottish Records Association has a page on the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland with references to that time:
[http://www.scottishrecordsassociation.org/index.php/archival-summaries/other-institutions/52-royal-highland-and-agricultural-society-of-scotland] Ed: possible issues with this web link, inquiries in progress.
And the following should lead directly to a pdf file on the above:
[http://www.scottishrecordsassociation.org/images/archivalSummaries/SRA004rhass.pdfSummary] Ed: possible issues with this web site, inquiries in progress.
Ps. There is also a recent reissue of one of Thorburn’s books: Diagrams, illustrative of Facts, Principles & Theories. Paperback by Nabu Press, published 2012. [Update: we have now viewed this book in late 2017 and confirm that it contains few statistics about land or agriculture. It covers a wide range of topics in various forms, including line graphs and squares within squares .]
When trying to work out how much grain was produced by crops such as bere, barley and oat in the 1800s, it was necessary to convert the bushel, the unit of measure that was common at that time, to the kilogram, which is the unit of weight in the modern International System (abbreviated to SI).
The bushel is a unit of ‘dry volume’ for measuring things like grain and meal rather than liquids. Farmers and grain traders used a standard basket or barrel which when full would hold 1 bushel, equivalent to 8 gallons. But obviously a bushel of ball bearings weighs more than a bushel of bere grain. So before it can be converted to modern units, the bushel has to be calibrated for each type of filling.
Table, jug and balance
Things used: table, kitchen measuring jug to 0.5 or 1 litre, kitchen balance (e.g. used for weighing out flour), lightweight container and a bag of bere grain, grown in the Living Field garden, harvested and air-dried for some months. The bere grain was cleared of stems and leaves – any long awns still attached to individual grains were broken off. The jug was filled with grain slowly. When a quarter full, the jug was banged gently on the table twice to consolidate the grain. The same was done when half full, three-quarters full and almost full. When full, the container was placed on the balance and the scale brought to zero. The grain was poured into the container and the weight noted.
In this instance, 0.5 litre of bere grain weighed 300 g (not 299 or 301).
Conversion
A bushel equals 8 gallons or 36.37 litres. So a bushel holds 72.7 of the 0.5 litre measuring jug. Since 0.5 litre of bere grain weighed 300 g, a bushel of bere should weigh 21.8 kg.
The bushel is used in some countries, including the USA and Canada, as a unit of weight and so a bushel has a different weight assigned to it for each type of grain. We are pleased to see that the USA’s standard bushel of barley is 21.77 kg, close to our estimate. Their bushel of wheat and several other small grain crops and beans is 27.2 kg while that of oat is 14.5 kg. It means wheat is heavier and oat is lighter than barley or bere for a given volume. So a person would be happier carrying two bushes of oat than two of bere.
What causes the difference in the weight of a bushel? Provided the cereals are dried to a constant moisture content, the difference lies in the proportion of the (heavier) grain to the surrounding protective husks. Wheat grain commonly falls out of the husks at harvest so the light material may not be included; oat is more husky.
Therefore when converting yields of bere in bushels, we will used the conversion, 1 bushel = 21.8 kg.
Sources, references
University of North Carolina, USA: the source informs that the previous URL (www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/scales/bushels.html) is no longer ‘live’ and recommends a superior location at University of Georgia – ‘Weights and processed yields of fruits and vegetables‘ .
National Museum of Scotland. Photograph of a bronze bushel measure.
Note of statistical procedures: the methods reported above can be used in a fun-sized comparison of different cereals and beans. A proper scientific calibration would check the balance with standard weights at the beginning, then repeat the procedure several times with different lots of grain from the same harvest to get an average with a estimate of the variation. If two corn crops were compared, the average plus variation would allow a statistical test of whether the two were really different.
Standard measures for checking the dry volume of produce such as grain and fruit have been in place since trade in agricultural products began. A barrel or basket holding one bushel (8 gallon or 36.4 litre) was once commonly used in Britain. (See Light on bushel.) The following is an example of a device used in Ancient Greece and Rome.
The measuring tables at Ancient Messene
At the archaeological site of Ancient Messene in the Peloponnese, Greece, there are stone tables into which hemispheres or bowls have been carved. A notice nearby states that these measuring standards were found during the excavation in what was originally part of a communal space (the agora). The bowls were “for testing the capacity of the containers used by merchants who were selling dry fruits and grain”. Images of the tables and bowls are shown below.
Measuring tables at Messene (Squire)
The tables are sited by a wall under the letters A and B in the upper image. Table A is shown lower left; it measures more than 1 metre in length. Each table has two bowls carved into it, identified by the white ovals, lower right.
The bowls have a rough surface, and holes at the bottom which would have been fitted with stoppers. The holes were large enough for grain to pour through when the stoppers were pulled out.
There was one further table, positioned in a corner made by two walls. One of the bowls seemed to have a hollow stone hemisphere placed on top of it (image below), the purpose of which is unclear.
Measuring table at Messene (Squire)
The ‘mensa ponderaria’ at Assos (after Tarbell)
This type of table, known generally as a ‘mensa ponderaria’ was widespread in the ancient world. F. B Tarbell gives an account of one found at Assos, an ancient site in Turkey. The table from Assos is a block of marble – 1.11 m long , 0.455 m broad and 0.21 high – in which have been excavated 5 bowls of differing volume. For various reasons, including that the surfaces of the five bowls are rough (as at Messene), it is believed they were originally lined with bronze. There is a copy of a drawing from Tarbell’s article below. A photograph of this mensa can be seen online at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (see references). The bowls are estimated to have held between 0.27 and 4.62 litre.
Mensa ponderaria at Assos from Tarbell
The largest bowl from Assos is therefore about 13% of a bushel. These capacities look at though they were designed for ground material or fine seed, for example ground spices or meal or cleaned seed of small-seeded crops. Coarser material such as fruit and husked grain contains a lot of air space that can cause packing errors when poured into such small containers.
Concluding
The stone tables and bowls at Messene appeared larger than the ones from Assos (but unfortunately they were not measured during the visit). From memory, the largest bowl would hold about half a bucket or one-third of a bushel, which is getting a bit closer to the practical size for measuring the dry volume of rough grain that retains husks, such as oat and barley, or small-sized fruit.
Ancient Messene was founded 369 BC, around 2400 years ago. These durable measuring tables indicate the importance of standard weights and measures to an advanced society that depended on agriculture, and on trade in produce, and wanted to be, and seen to be, fair and to avoid having the people misled by traders and merchants.
The Living Field is pleased to announce that the artist Jean Duncan has been commissioned to work with us during 2014 on designs and exhibits to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Living Field Garden.
Painting by Jean Duncan 2013
Jean will develop ideas arising from the Living Field’s5000 years project – the history and use of crops and other plants since the first settlers brought agriculture to these shores in the late stone age.
One result of her work will be educational material free to download from the web or available as PDF files.
You can see more about Jean’s work and her previous collaborations with the Living Field at the Jean Duncan page in the main menu.
