OATS. 405 



food. It brightens the hair, promotes digestion and gives 

 a horse good health under heavy tasks. For many years it 

 was the habit of farmers to only thresh out oats enough to 

 serve as seed, and they looked at the resulting straw as 

 waste, most of it going to the stables as bedding, or left to 

 rot where threshed. We give below an analysis of the 

 straw as well as of the grain to show the loss they have 

 sustained. 



Oats, both green and matured, form a most excellent 

 food for hogs. Nothing will start hogs to fatten more 

 kindly than to be turned on an oat field when the oats are 

 half grown. In a few days they will begin to look smooth, 

 the hair gets sleek and by the time they have been on it 

 two or three weeks they are almost fat. If a large apple 

 or peach orchard is on the farm it will be a good plan to 

 sow it in oats, and as the young apples or peaches begin to 

 fall they, as well as the oats, are devoured by the swine, and 

 thus, not only are the animals benefited but the eggs of 

 insects that are in the fallen fruit are destroyed. In this 

 way in a few years the curculio may be entirely eradicated 

 from the orchards, as well as the borer and other insects 

 injurious to the trees. 



We give, first, an analysis of the grain and then of the 

 straw. 



Oats contain, starch, 60.54; gluten and other azotized 

 matters, 14.39; dextrine, glucose, etc., 9.25; fatty matters, 

 5.50; cellulose, 7.06; mineral matters, 3.25: or, econom- 

 ically, 



Flesh forming principles, 1 8.447 



Heat producing principles, 73.376 



Fat producing principles, 8.178 



Wolff and Knopps analysis may be seen on page 336, 

 (under buckwheat). 



According to the estimates of Meyer, based upon actual 

 experiments in feeding, one hundred and fifty Ibs. of oat 



