140 Feeds and Feeding. 



Number of varieties in test. 

 4 

 8 

 7 



Here we observe that the lightest oats yielded the highest per- 

 centage weight of kernels to hull. This test points to the conclu- 

 sion that light oats are not necessarily low in actual nutriment, 

 and is contrary to the teaching of Eichardson. 



The oat grain shows a higher proportion of digestible protein 

 than corn, while in ether extract it exceeds wheat and nearly 

 equals corn. With a rather low carbohydrate content, the nutri- 

 tive ratio is such that this grain contains within itself quite a 

 well-balanced ration for farm animals. 



A hull-less variety of oats is occasionally grown in this country. 

 For poultry and swine it serves a useful purpose, but for other 

 farm stock, varieties of oats with hulls ai'e preferable. 



187. New oats unfit for feeding.— Storer ^ treats of this question 

 in the following words: ''As all horse keepers know, new oats 

 are unfit to be given to working horses. They loosen the bowels 

 of the animals, make their flesh watery, or 'soften them down,' 

 as the term is; i. e., they render animals apt to sweat easily, and, in 

 general, put them ' out of condition.' How or why the new oats 

 produce these effects is not known; but in the course of a few 

 months after harvest, and especially after cold weather has set in, 

 the oats undergo a change of some kind, either of after-ripening 

 or of fermentation, and are thereafter fit to be fed to horses. 

 Probably this difference between new and old oats depends upon 

 a change in the chemical composition of some one peculiar, and, 

 so to say, medicinal constituent of the oat grain." 



188. A stimulating principle in oats. — The mettle shown by the 

 horse nurtured on oats has led to the supposition that this grain 

 contains a stimulating principle. In 1845 Norton separated an 

 albuminoid from the oat grain which Jolinston named " avenine." 

 Later work of the chemists effectually did away with Johnston's 

 albuminoid, and it was left to Sanson * to announce the discovery 



1 Agriculture in Some of Its Relations with Chemistry, Vol. IL 

 * Comptes Rendus 36, I, p. 75; Biederm. Centralbl., 1884, p. 20. 



