No. (1. DEPARTMENT OF AG lUCULTU KE. IT 



The Ihird in value of (he cereal crops pi'odnc«'d in Pennsylvania 

 is the oat crop. As it' lo create a fair average for all sections of 

 the State, nature seems to have provided that in the portions of the 

 State possessing the least adaptation to raising corn, oats shall 

 grow luxuriantly. It is no uncommon tiling to see large fields of 

 oats, in some of the more elevated counties of the State, that yield 

 from fifty to sixty bushels per acre. The very high value that 

 oats possess as a feed for dairy stock gives to this grain a special 

 importance in this State, where the dairy industry is so prominent. 

 The total production of oats in the state in 1903 was 34,582,863 

 bushels, valued at |12,796,659.0(». The average production per acre 

 was 28.0 bushels. 



Of the grain crops, next to the oat in value and production comes 

 rye. Large (quantities of rye are raised in the dairy sections of the 

 State that is cut befort^ ripening and fed as green roughage in the 

 early part of the summer before other ^.oiling crops are sufficiently 

 advanced for use. There are certain sections of the State that 

 yield unusually large crops of this valuable cereal. Notably among 

 these sections is the eastern slope of the Allegheny Mountains in 

 the southern part of the State, where a red colored soil is found 

 that seems especially adapted to the production of rye. The total 

 number of bushels of rye raised in the State in 1903 was 5,746,535 

 bushels, valued at .f3,5G2,346.00. The average production w^as 15.4 

 bushels per acre. 



Another of the valuable grain crops grown in Peunsylvartia is 

 buckwheat. Everywhere upon the uplands of the State, during 

 the mid-summer months, large fields may be seen covered with the 

 beautiful white, sweet-scented bloom of growing buckwheat. Under 

 favorable circumstances from thirty-five to forty-five bushels may 

 be produced per acre. Until recent years the buckwheat crop was 

 not counted among the money crops of the Pennsylvania farmer. 

 What he needed for consumption in his own family w^as made into 

 flour and the remainder of the crop was fed to stock. At the 

 present time, however, the demand for the flour or meal is so great 

 that with an equally great and yearly increasing demand for buck- 

 w^heat middlings as a dairy food, the farmer whose soil and climatic 

 conditions are favorable to its x)i'oduction, finds buckwheat to be 

 a very valuable ready-money crop. The total yield of buckwheat in 

 the State in 1903 was 4,161,213 bushels, valued at |2,603,1S0.00. 



The last of the grain crops to be mentioned is barley. That so 

 little barley is grown in Pennsylvania seems very strange to the 

 writer. Years ago, when the only variety, of which we had any 

 practical knowledge, was the heavily bearded; and when we had no 

 means of harvesting except by cutting with grain cradle and binding 



2—6—1903 



