48 Select Plants for Industrial Culture 



establish itself, even on heathy moors. It produces a sweet fodder, 

 but not in so great quantity as several other less nutritious grasses. 

 It is perennial, and recommended by Langethal for such ground, as 

 contains some lime, being thus as valuable as Festuca ovina. Eligible 

 also for meadows, especially under a system of irrigation. 



Avena pubescens, Linn. 



Downy Oat-grass. Europe, Northern and Middle Asia. A sweet 

 perennial grass, requiring dry but ^ood soil containing lime; it is 

 nutritious and prolific, and one of the earliest kinds, but not well 

 resisting traffic. Several good Oat-grasses are peculiar to North- 

 America and other parts of the globe. Their relative value for 

 fodder is in many cases not exactly known, nor does the limit 

 assigned to this volume allow of their being enumerated specially. 



Avena sativa, Linne. 



The Common Oats. In Middle Europe cultivated before the 

 Christian era, and in Switzerland already at the Bronze-Age. A. de 

 Candolle regards it as probably indigenous to Eastern temperate 

 Europe, particularly the Austrian Empire, thence perhaps extending 

 to Siberia. Annual. Important for fodder, green or as grain for 

 the latter indispensable. Fit for even poor or moory or recently 

 drained land, though not so well adapted for sandy soil as rye, nor 

 well available for calcareous ground; resists wet better than other 

 cereals; best chosen as first crop for inferior land, when newly broken 

 up; middling grassy soil is particularly suited for oats; in rich 

 ground more prolific for green fodder. It succeeds in rotation after 

 every crop, though variously as regards yield, and best after clover. 

 In volcanic soil of the Victoria-colony as much as 75 bushels of Oats 

 have been obtained from an acre in one harvest, and in most favorable 

 places in New Zealand exceptionally even double that quantity. Its 

 culture extends not quite so far towards polar and alpine regions as 

 barley, on account of the longer time required for its maturing; yet it 

 will ripen still at lat. 69 28' in Norway (Schuebeler). Varieties 

 with seeds separating spontaneously from the bracts (chaff) are : A. 

 nuda, L. and A. Chinensis, Metzger, the Tatarian and Chinese Oats, 

 which are the sorts preferred for porridge and cakes. Other varieties 

 or closely allied species are: A. orientalis, Schreber, which is very 

 rich in grain, and on account of the rigidity of its stem especially 

 fitted for exposed mountain-localities; A. brevis, Roth, the short- 

 grained oats, which is particularly suitable for stable-fodder; A. 

 strigosa, Schreber, which is a real native of Middle-Europe, arid 

 deserves preference for sandy soil. Russian quas-beer is made of 

 oats (Langethal, Brockhaus). 



Averrhoa Carambola, 



Continental and insular India. Not hurt by slight frost, except 

 when very young. Sir Jos. Hooker found this small tree on the 

 Upper Indus as far as Lahore. The fruit occurs in a sweet and acid 



