16 



FIG. 3. 



WILD OAT. 



Avenafatua (L). 



An annual weed with erect and smooth sterns. The leaves and 

 stems are covered with white bloom, which gives a peculiar white-green 

 color to the whole plant. The head forms a loose panicle, with nodding 

 and spreading branchlets. The awn is long and bent, and covered with 

 brown hairs. It is bent most when dry ; but if moistened, it uncoils and 

 wriggles around, thus causing the seed to move appreciable distances. 



The principal points of differences between the wild and cultivated 

 oat are (1) In the former the chaff is thick and .hairy, while in the 

 latter it is thin and hairless ; and (2) The wild oat has a long, stiff awn 

 which is bent and twisted when dry, while the cultivated oat either has 

 a much smaller and less stiff awn or none at all. An average plant 

 produces about 800 seeds. 



Time of flowering, July. Time of seeding, July-August. 



Dispersal conveyed from place to place by threshing machines, and 

 as an impurity in seed -grain. 



Wild Oats are at home in any soil that will grow cereals, and they 

 ripen their seeds among almost any cereal crop. The seeds possess won- 

 derful vitality, some of them remaining buried in the soil for years and 

 germinating as soon as they are brought under favorable conditions. 



Eradication. On a field infested with wild oats, cereal crops should 

 be dropped out of the rotation as far as possible ; and hoed crops, soiling- 

 crops, hay, and pasture should take their place. To get the land under 

 grass, it should be fallowed during part of the season, the cultivation 

 being frequent arid shallow, to destroy all seeds that may have germi 

 nated in the upper layer of the soil. The land can then be so wu. with 

 winter wheat and seeded, or with an early variety of barley, which 

 should be cut on the green side. The treatment mentioned is suitable 

 for pasture land, or land which has produced a hay or soiling crop during 

 the forepart of the season. 



