140 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



is calculated to be mixed with wheat flour for bread ; in 

 which case the oat flour, being kiln dried, must be scalded 

 before it is mixed with the wheat flour, otherwise the bread 

 will be too dry. Good oat flour, prepared as above, mixed 

 with wheat flour, half and half, will make as light and plea- 

 sant bread as common country wheat flour, and it will 

 trouble good judges of bread to tell it from clear flour bread. 

 Again, it is excellent to make butter cake, by the Yankees 

 called slapjacks. The oat-meal is calculated for puddings, 

 and is a substitute for rye meal to mix with corn meal or rye 

 meal for bread. In either case the oat-meal must be scalded 

 before it is mixed. 



' Thus after supplying my family, the remainder is for mar- 

 ket. The oat flour I have generally sold in Boston and New 

 York to the druggists. The meal is also purchased by the 

 druggists. I have generally sold them oat flour for from four 

 to five dollars per hundred, and the meal from three fifty to 

 four fifty, which is by them retailed as medicine, from twelve 

 to twenty cents per pound. 



' The meal is frequently h ought by foreigners, by the bar- 

 rel or hundred, for family use. The sale of oat-meal is at 

 present rather limited ; the reason is that but very few peo- 

 ple in this country, save foreigners, are acquainted with the 

 use of it, except for medicine. Foreigners generally prefer 

 oat-meal to flour. I really hope, both for our health and the 

 interest of agriculture, that the time is not far distant, when 

 oat flour and meal will be used in every family for food. 



' Much may be said as to the value of this article as medi- 

 cine, as well as for food. It has been a common article for 

 food in Scotland and Ireland for many years. Seldom, if 

 ever, an English, Scotch, or Irish vessel sailed without a 

 supply of oat-meal ; and I may say it would be well for eve- 

 ry commander of an American vessel, in making up his or- 

 der for ship stores, to include a sufficient quantity of oat- 

 meal or flour for his voyage.' 



A writer in the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository, 

 vol. V. pp. 331-2, says, ' It appears to us best, all things con- 

 sidered, that the first crop, after turning over sward, should 

 be oats. The reason why an oat crop should precede a po- 

 tato crop is, that it not only pays well by its product for 

 the year's labor, but enables the husbandman to deepen his 

 ploughing, preparatory to the second year's series in the ro- 

 tation.' 



We believe that oat-meal is of more value as an article of 



