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The World's Commercial Products 



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By permission of the " Canada" Newspaper 



HARVESTING THE FIRST CROP 



such evidence it is highly improbable that the original home of the plant would be so remotely 

 distant from the countries where it was anciently cultivated. 



The " bristle-pointed oat" (Avena strigosa), which has been regarded by some authorities 

 as the origin of the Scotch oat, is found in fields in Europe which have been thrown out of 

 cultivation, a fact which confirms the opinion that it is but a variety of the common oat, and 

 not an independent species. Another form of oat (Avena orientalis) has been cultivated in 

 Europe for upwards of 150 years. As the name indicates, the plant comes from the East, being; 

 known in Germany as the Turkish or the Hungarian oat, and it is often mixed with common 

 oats, from which it is not easy to distinguish it on cursory examination. A most interesting, 

 reference to the oat is made in a Chinese historical work dealing with the period 618-907 a.d. 

 The oat referred to is the " naked oat," known to botanists as Avena saliva nuda. It has been 

 found wild around Pekin, and the botanist Lindley has declared that the " pilcorn " of the 

 old agriculturists, which was cultivated in England during the thirteenth century, was no 

 other than the naked oat. 



Oats form one of the most valuable sources of food for both man and beast, the nutritive 

 value'of the grain being very high. It is extensively grown in Britain and on the continent 

 of Europe, the Russian oat crop being one of the most important in the country. There are 

 also enormous areas in North America devoted to this crop. 



The importance of oats as a fodder for stock, especially for horses, is well known, and the 

 straw itself is a valuable constituent of chaff, but perhaps the most important use of the cereal r 

 from a popular point of view, is as the source of " oatmeal," so extensively used for domestic 

 purposes. Oatmeal is obtained by grinding the kiln-dried grain from which the husks have 

 been previously removed. The meal can be baked into " cake " or " biscuit," but owing to the 

 difficulty of rupturing the starch grains contained in it, except at very high temperatures,, 

 the meal does not lend itself to bread-making 



