28 THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



bear their seeds in spikes, bald or bearded. Oats 

 stand alone, the grain with a loose, branched head, 

 made of separate kernels. Each kernel has an 

 outside papery husk and an inner hull that is 

 ground up in making oatmeal, or removed in 

 some forms of the cereal. Oatmeal feeds thou- 

 sands of people every morning of the year. 



Botanists, curious to find growing the wild parent 

 of cultivated oats, are constantly being deceived 

 by patches of oats, wild enough, but only run- 

 aways from fields. The seeds are often carried 

 by birds, often by other chance rides. Oats are 

 able to get on very well in wild land, where they 

 come up year after year, and spread over wider 

 areas by self-seeding. It is not likely that any one 

 will ever find the aboriginal species of oats, and 

 feel sure enough to satisfy himself. 



Yet it seems probable that this grain was first 

 cultivated in the temperate and colder parts of 

 eastern Europe and western Asia. Its culture 

 has extended into the United States and Canada, 

 and eastward into China and Siberia, until to-day 

 the oat crop is greater in bulk than any other 

 grain crop. 



Oats, "the grain of hardiness," divide hon- 

 ors with wheat, barley, and rye, in fields that 

 stretch up north almost to the Arctic Circle. 



