10 STABLE MANAGEMENT. 



of the world. They are more expensive than the 

 native article, and are generally only used for train- 

 ing race-horses on. The Indian oat, compared with 

 the English, Australian, or South African, is a poor 

 article, running very light, with a great amount of 

 husk ; but if properly crushed, and mixed with gram 

 and bran in proportions of one part of each, they are 

 greatly superior to barley. The oat in India is a 

 winter crop, and is harvested in the spring. Both 

 colonial and Indian oats are always white. I have 

 never seen the black or tawny variety which is so 

 common in Ireland. A demand having arisen for 

 them by Europeans, it is sometimes possible in 

 Northern India to buy them in the bazaar; but 

 generally it is necessary to make a special arrange- 

 ment with the grower, as natives do not use them 

 as a feeding grain for their own animals. They 

 grow the crop round the wells, and cut it green in 

 the straw as forage for the well and plough bullocks 

 in the spring, when they are working hard. Arrange- 

 ments can generally be made with the cultivator to 

 purchase so much from him by weight, -thrashed and 

 delivered at your own stable, or else to purchase so 

 many acres of the standing crop as it is growing ; but 

 the former plan is the most satisfactory, as it is 

 astonishing the heavy crop that will be produced ; 



