NURSERIES 



OATS 



485 



over the different divisions of the packing houses, 

 whose business it is to direct the men and keep an 

 accurate account of the kind and amount of vfoik 

 performed by each during the day. Verbal reports 

 from the foremen to the superintendent daily dur- 

 ing the busy season, will greatly facilitate the 

 work. 



Distribution of the investment. 



The approximate distribution of capital in the 

 nursery under consideration would be as follows : 



$50,000 



Capital stock 



Annual rental for 200 acres of land 

 at $6 per acre for two years . . $2,400 



Horses, tools, etc 1,500 



Cost of seedling stock, planting 

 and cultivation of nursery-farm 

 for two years 25,000 



OfBce equipment, management (in- 

 cluding commission advanced on 

 sales for one year) 15,000 



Packing and storage buildings . . 6,100 



$50,000 



OATS. Avena sativa, Linn. Graminex. Figs. 715- 

 721, also Pig. 542. 



By A. L. Stone. 



A grass grown for its grain, which is used both 

 for human food and for stock, and also for its 

 straw. It is the only species of the genus that is 

 of great agricultural importance. Avena fatua, the 

 wild oat (Fig. 543), from which the domestic oat 

 may have sprung, is a serious pest in many parts 

 of the world. 



The flowers of the oat are borne in a panicle 

 which consists of a central rachis or flower-stem 

 from which small branches extend in various direc- 

 tions. The panicles are nine to twelve inches in 

 length, and the branches are arranged in whorls 

 at intervals along the flower-stem. There are usu- 

 ally three to five or more whorls, which bear sixty 

 to eighty florets, or spikelets. (Fig. 715.) Each 

 one of these spikelets is composed of two or more 

 flowers, but it is seldom that more than two of 

 them mature, and of these one grain is invari- 

 ably larger than the other. In many varieties but 

 a single grain reaches full size and the oats are 

 called "single" oats; in others two grains mature, 

 and the oats are called " twin " oats. The flower 

 itself is placed in two outer, light, netted-veined 

 glumes which enclose the flowering glume and 

 palea. When there are two flowers on the pedicel, 

 the flowering glume of the lower flower generally 



encloses that of the upper flower to a greater or 

 less degree. Within the flowering glume and palea 

 are the organs of reproduction, which consist of 

 three filaments and anthers, closely set about an 

 ovary bearing two feathery stigmas. These stig- 

 mas surmount the ovary and 

 spread out as the flower ex- 

 pands. The filaments bearing 

 the anthers grow very rapidly 

 and push themselves outside 

 the palea. The anthers are so 

 arranged that the growth of 

 the filaments changes their po- 

 sition enough to subvert them 

 and allow the pollen to fall on 

 the stigmas. The flowers bloom 

 in morning or afternoon. 



Fig. 715. 

 Distribution and yield. Oat spikeiet in Moom. 



The exact nativity of the oat plant is not posi- 

 tively known, but the evidence would indicate it to 

 be Tartary in western Asia, or possibly eastern 

 Europe. No record of it has been found in the 

 literature of China, India or other parts of southern 

 Asia. Neither is it mentioned prominently in the 

 early histories of Asia or the Holy Land. Certainly 

 it has never been of such importance to the human 

 race as wheat, corn or rye, all of which figured 

 largely in the early nurture of the race. 



The great oat-producing regions of the world 

 lie almost wholly within the north temperate zone 

 and include Russia, Norway and Sweden, Germany, 

 Canada and the north-central part of the United 

 States. Large quantities of the grain of very 

 good quality are grown in Australia and the neigh- 

 boring islands, and more recently limited quantities 

 have been grown in Africa and South America, but 

 the great bulk of any season's crop is produced in 

 the first mentioned territory. 



Russia and its provinces, Poland and Northern 

 Caucasia, produce the greatest quantity of oats of 

 any country in Europe or America, or in fact the 

 world. Of the more than two billion bushels pro- 

 duced in Europe in 1904, Russia furnished 1,065,- 

 088,000 bushels. The oats grown there are high 

 grade and many of the most valuable varieties now 

 being grown in America are importations from 

 Russia, largely from the southwestern provinces. 



The following tables from the 1904 Yearbook of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture, giv- 

 ing the yields of the various grains in the principal 

 regions where each is grown, will give some idea 

 of the comparative importance of the oat crop: 



Yield op Oats by Continents. 



