Leading Cereals and their By-products. 



139 



Y. Oats and their By-products. 

 Digestible nutrients and fertilizing constituents. 



186. Concerning the oat grain. The oat crop ranks third in 

 importance among cereals in the United States. Owing to the 

 uncertainty of wheat as to yield, and its falling price during recent 

 years, the oat crop has been in the ascendency and has greatly 

 increased. Though primarily used as feed for animals, the oat 

 grain now holds a prominent place among nutrients for man in both 

 Europe and America. No grain varies so widely in weight per 

 bushel as oats. In the southern portion of our country a bushel of 

 oats often weighs only twenty pounds, while on the Pacific coast 

 the same volume may weigh fifty pounds. Southern oat grains 

 have an inflated husk and bear an awn or beard which causes 

 the grains to lie loose in the measure. The kernel is larger 

 than that of the Northern grain. At the North the oat grain is- 

 encased in a compact hull, which is not often awned. According 

 to Richardson, l the hulls of oats are from twenty-four to forty- 

 five per cent, of the weight of the grain, the average being about 

 thirty per cent. Richardson states: " The proportion of husk to 

 kernel and the compactness of the grain prove to be the all-impor- 

 tant factors, and the weight per bushel the best means of judging 

 the value of the grain. " 



At the Ohio Station, 2 Hickman, studying the question whether 

 the weight per bushel for oats indicated the net amount of kernels,, 

 secured these results: 



1 Bui. 9, Div. of Chemistry, U. S. Dept. Agr., Washington. 



2 Bui. 57. 



