CHAPTER V 

 OATS 



HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION. 



202. Origin and History. The oat belongs to the genus 

 Avena, one of the numerous subdivisions of the great family 

 of grasses, the Gramineae. As nearly as can be determined, 

 this plant is a native of central or western Asia and eastern 

 Europe, probably within what is now Russia. No mention 

 is made of oats in the earlier writings which have been pre- 

 served, and there is no evidence that this grain was culti- 

 vated until a much later period than wheat and barley, 

 though it was known among the Greeks and Romans. It 

 is not strange that the ancient peoples, with their crude 

 methods of grinding and preparing grains for use as food, first 

 cultivated wheat, which threshes free from the hull, and bar- 

 ley, with a hull much thinner than that of oats. Oats prob- 

 ably were not grown till the need for feed grain for domestic 

 animals became a pressing one, and were then used for human 

 food only when other grain crops failed. Their hardiness 

 and quick maturity brought them into favor in some of the 

 northern countries, where they have long been used as food 

 for man as well as for live stock. The early colonists intro- 

 duced oats into America, and their cultivation soon became 

 common, particularly in the more northerly sections. 



Practically all the cultivated varieties of oats have been 

 developed from the form known as Avena saliva, though a 

 feW; such as the Red Rustproof of the Southern states, 

 have probably been derived from Avena sterilis or some 

 other wild form native to southern Europe or northern 

 Africa. Several species of Avena are now found wild in 



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