172 HOW TO GROW GOOD CORN. 



Having now procured a crop of separate types of 

 oat from the same seed, we preserved them distinct, 

 and this year carried on our experiments hy culti- 

 vating a patch of each, whilst the plot of 1856 was 

 left with self-sown seeds, in order that it should again 

 become wild by degeneracy. 



Prom these experiments, then, we may conclude 

 that different types of crop oats are derived from 

 the Avena fatua, or wild oat ; but, besides this, they 

 open out a subject for inquiry of great practical in- 

 terest and importance, which may be clearly stated 

 as follows : — 



If by cultivation the wild oat assumes the culti- 

 vated form, then by degeneracy cultivated oats may 

 become wild ones. 



Those who know what a detestable weed is the 

 wild oat wherever it occurs, and how difficult it is to 

 eradicate,* will at once see the cogency of the ques- 

 tion involved. 



Farmers in some districts, and more especially on 

 stiff clay soils, have ever objected to the cultivation 

 of oats, as they had always maintained that they left 

 behind a crop of weed oats. This, which was never 

 a favourite idea with the botanist, who is generally 

 too much inclined to species-making, seems now to 

 have a basis of truth, for not only is it confirmed by 



* The author once went with a rector of a parish in Gloucester- 

 shire to examine the glebe allotments of the poor people, when, 

 catching sight of an apparent crop of oats, the landlord threatened to 

 dispossess the tenant, " because he bad carelessly left his crop without 

 gathering." However, the matter was explained when it was pointed 

 out that the land was planted with wheat, which the oats had quite 

 smothered. 



