488 FIELD AND GARDEN PRODUCTS 



crop for grasses or clover, or when grown with crimson clover or 

 vetch, less seed should be used than when oats are grown alone. 



Treatment of the Land After Seeding. Harrowing in the 

 early spring will help to keep weeds in check and will also loosen 

 the hard surface soil and prevent loss of moisture. When the open- 

 furrow method of seeding is used the ridges between the rows should 

 be leveled down in the spring with the harrow. Winter oats, like 

 other winter grains, are sometimes used as pasture for stock. Early 

 seeding is particularly essential when the crop is to be pastured in 

 the fall. Pasturing at this time always increases the danger from 

 winterkilling, as it lessens the protection afforded by the leaves. 

 Winter oats should not be pastured as closely as winter wheat or 

 rye, as the oats are less hardy than the other grains. Pasturing in 

 the spring delays maturity. As earliness is essential to the pro- 

 duction of a good crop of oats the value of the pasture does not 

 usually make up for the loss in yield of grain. Winter-grain fields 

 should never be pastured when the ground is wet, as the trampling 

 injures the physical condition of the soil. Harrowing in the spring 

 to loosen soil which has been packed by pasturing is beneficial to 

 the crop. 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE OAT CROP. 



Nearly 32,000,000 acres were devoted to the production of oats 

 in the United States in 1907. This was the largest acreage reported 

 up to that time, but the acre yield was the lowest since 1893 and 

 among the lowest recorded by the Bureau of Statistics of the 

 United States. 



Mechanical Selection. Much has been said and written about 

 the use of the fanning mill and other means of seed separation by 

 gravity or wind power for the improvement of seed oats. Actual 

 field tests carefully conducted by several experiment stations indi- 

 cate that little permanent improvement of the variety results from 

 these methods of selection. If the seed is carefully cleaned each 

 year, however, the work will be fully justified by the removal of 

 weed seed and the small shriveled grain, which, if it grew at all, 

 would probably produce weak and unproductive plants. The ordi- 

 nary field crop of oats is a mixture of several varieties, some of 

 which are necessarily inferior. Mechanical selection can not, of 

 course, purify the strain by the removal of these mixtures, which 

 are often the cause of unsatisfactory returns. This can be accom- 

 plished only by hand selection. 



Introduction of New Seed. The introduction of new seed in- 

 cludes importations from foreign countries and transfer from one 

 locality to another within the United States. Many of our best 

 varieties have been introduced from foreign countries; indeed, it is 

 probably true that more good varieties of oats have been introduced 

 from abroad, especially from Europe, than of any other cereal. 

 This is largely due, however, to the fact that little attention has 

 been given to the production of new varieties of oats in the United 

 States. Notable among the introductions of recent years have been 

 Swedish Select and Sixty-Day, introduced by the United States De- 



