CHAPTER V 



OATS 



HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION 



219. Origin and History. The oat belongs to the genus 

 Avena, one of the numerous subdivisions of the great family 

 of grasses, the Gramineae. As nearly as can be determined, 

 this plant is a native of central or western Asia and eastern 

 Europe, probably within what is now the Russian Empire. 

 No mention is made of oats in the earlier writings which have 

 been preserved, and there is no evidence that this grain was 

 cultivated until a much later period than wheat and barley, 

 though it was known among the Greeks and Romans. It 

 is not strange that the ancient peoples, with their crude 

 methods of grinding and preparing grains for use as food, first 

 cultivated wheat, which thrashes free from the hull, and bar- 

 ley, with a hull much thinner than that of oats. Oats prob- 

 ably were not grown till the need for feed grain for domestic 

 animals became a pressing one, and were then used for human 

 food only in times of failure of other grain crops. Their 

 hardiness and quick maturity brought them into favor in 

 some of the northern countries, where they have long been 

 commonly used as food for man as well as for live stock. The 

 early colonists introduced oats into America, and their culti- 

 vation soon became common, particularly in the more 

 northerly sections. 



220. Relationships. Practically all the cultivated varie- 

 ties of oats have been developed from the form known as 

 Avena saliva, though a few, such as the Red Rustproof 

 of the Southern states, have perhaps been derived from 



