94 AGRICULTURE 



3. Collect samples of unthrashed oats, and examine 

 (1) for each kind of rust; (2) for each kind of smut. If 

 it is not possible to find unthrashed oats, examine straw for 

 rust and evidences of smut. 



4. Did rust or smut damage the crop in your region 

 last season? Does your father treat his seed oats for 

 smut? If so, by what method? Suppose your crop was 

 reduced two per cent, by smut, how much did you lose per 

 acre ? How much on the entire crop ? Would this not more 

 than pay for treating the seed ? 



5. Does your father always run his seed oats through 

 a fanning mill to select the better grains and remove weed 

 seed? How long will it take to run one hundred bushels 

 through a fanning mill? Suppose it results in an increase 

 in yield of two bushels per acre, how much profit would 

 there be from the cleaning? 



6. Have you seen oats left in the shock until they 

 were damaged, either by wet weather, or by shattering? 

 About how much per acre does it cost to stack oats ? Sup- 

 pose there is a loss of one bushel to the acre by allowing 

 the grain to stand in the shock; will it pay to stack? (Con- 

 sider also the better quality of grain and straw.) 



7. Make out a debit and credit sheet showing the 

 proper method of keeping an account with a crop of oats 

 covering the entire season, beginning with plowing and 

 closing with harvesting, thrashing and marketing of the 

 oats. 



8. Test one hundred grains of seed oats for vitality by 

 the use of the rag-doll tester or blotter tester, and estimate 

 the percentage of strong, weak and dead seed. From this 

 base your estimate on the loss of crop if all the oats sown 

 in your home field are of the same standard of vitality. 



9. Secure a copy of a score-card for oats and judge 

 twenty or thirty grains of oats. 



10. Sketch a map of the United States and locate the 

 oat producing states. From the last crop census record 

 the number of bushels of oats produced in each state. 

 What foreign countries produce oats ? 



