Ch. XIII.] ON OATS. 181 



SOIL AND CULTIVATION. 



Although oats may be grown upon any kind of soil that is not too dry, 

 and are in this country seldom sown upon land that will produce barley, it 

 is yet a mistake to suppose that they may not be advantageously cultivated 

 upon good soils, and it is now generally admitted that in many parts of 

 Ireland, and throughout the north of Scotland, they form a more certain 

 as well as a more profitable crop than wheat; for they support unfavour- 

 able seasons better ; and although they suffer, like all other grain, from bad 

 weather, they yet recover more readily when it changes. When land is 

 broken up from rough pasture, they form the most usual crop, and are 

 even frequently sown upon one ploughing, as they will flourish before the 

 soil can be brought into a fit state for the regular courses of husbandry by 

 the decomposition of the sward ; and, for the same reason, the crop is very 

 commonly repeated. They will also be always found the best crop to 

 follow clover which has stood two years, and which it may be convenient 

 to feed until the close of autumn : or, even should it not be requisite to 

 feed it after the summer, yet — unless the land be peculiarly adapted to 

 wheat — it may be found a better practice to break up the clover late in the 

 season, to leave the land in that state until early in the spring ; and then to 

 sow oats under furrow, slightly harrowed, and afterwards to harrow them 

 once again when they have sprouted. 



Oats are very rarely sown after a summer fallow, though they frequently 

 pi'ecede it. However, when the plan is adopted, the land is ridged up 

 during the winter, and generally receives a seed furrow in the spring ; though 

 this is frequently dispensed with, and the seed is put in either with the 

 grubber or the harrow. 



The crop is rarely dunged for; and, in the triennial system, upon soils 

 of a nature so heavy as not to admit of the alternate husbandry on which 

 corn crops necessarily follow each other, wheat is generally made to pre- 

 cede oats : the better practice would, however, be to invert the plan, — to 

 sow the oats first, and to dress with long dung, by which the crop will be 

 much benefitted, and the field will be brought into fine order for the pro- 

 duction of the succeeding wheat. 



When sown upon the stubble of a previous corn crop, the ground should 

 get three ploughings ; for, if only two be given, the land becomes fre- 

 quently so infested with weeds, that, extraordinary as it may appear, it is 

 often found more foul than when only ploughed once. 



Oats are sometimes sown with clover ; but the practice is not so common 

 as it is with barley, for they shade the ground more than the latter, and 

 are, therefore, apt to smother the young grass seeds. This in a great 

 measure prevents the necessity of sowing them with the drill ; and, as 

 newly broken up ground is, besides, seldom in a fit state to allow of the 

 operation bekig performed in that manner, they are mostly sown broadcast : 

 there can, however, be little doubt that when drilling, and the more careful 

 management with which the process is continued, can be conveniently 

 carried into execution, the crops will be materially benefitted.* 



Oats are very commonly sown along with tares, in order to be cut green 

 for cattle ; and in some instances the crop is allowed to stand until ripe ; but 



* In the Survey of Devonshire an instance is mentioned of a crop of white oats, 

 grown upon a sound grey loam, and highly manured, having yielded the extraordinary 

 quantity of 115 bushels per acre, weighing about 351bs. The seed was drilled at IIJ- 

 inches : the land twice scarified, horse-hoed, and the rows afterwards moulded up. A 

 part of the same field of like quality, and equally manured, was at the same time sown 

 broad-cast and harrowed in: the produce at the rate of 88 l)usbels pei acre.— p. 180. 



