SOIL ADAPTED TO THE OAT CROP. 227 



assumes of necessity a prominent position, as barley is prac- 

 tically excluded from them through the tendency it has to 

 produce straw rather than grain. And although wheat can 

 be, and is, grown in black earth or soft loam soils, still this 

 is only the case where the climate is dry and warm, 'and 

 where the intervals between its appearance on the same 

 soil are longer than is usual under ordinary rotations. 

 Oats, therefore, in such soils becomes the grain crop to 

 which all the aims of the farmer should be turned. The 

 third class of soils is made up of (1) thin gravel soil left 

 by the infiltration of water ; (2) poor whinstone soil situated 

 on the higher parts of greenstone trap hills; (3) loose 

 sandy soil; (4) loose calcareous soil; and (5) cold, poor 

 clay soil. It is only by putting this class of soils under 

 the highest farming, or by keeping them under grass for a 

 long period, that they can be made oat-producing. Even 

 where the climate is cool and moist, it is a difficult matter 

 from such soils to raise good crops of oats ; it is therefore 

 almost useless to try to do so where they are situated in 

 dry and warm districts. The easiest and the most econo- 

 mical way to bring such soils, where the climate is suitable, 

 into oat cultivation, is to pasture them two or three years 

 in every rotation, and where turnips can be grown, to bone 

 manure them, and eat them off the land by sheep. On 

 the subject of oat cropping of such lands, Mr. Bennett 

 states that upon stony, poor, sterile clay land, no crop will 

 pay better than the oat when taken after the summer fal- 

 low. In Bedfordshire, on land of this class, the following 

 is the plan of cropping which, Mr. Bennett adds, may be 

 carried on with advantage ad infinitum One-eighth of the 

 fallows to be a dead or summer fallow, the other one-eighth 

 to be sown with winter tares, eaten off by sheep, and fal- 

 lowed. In the succeeding year, the eighth which was bare 

 or dead fallow is to be cropped with oats and seeded 

 down; the other eighth which bore tares, to be cropped 

 with barley, and not seeded. The crop next taken off this 

 to be beans, the other being seeded. At Michaelmas, the 

 other two-eighths, or one-fourth, to be wheat. As seeds 



