238 VETEEINARY HYGIENE 



In inspecting a sample evenness in the size and shape of 

 the grains should be looked for. Plump short oats and 

 thin long oats do not belong to the same crop ; they 

 suggest a mixture, which is a very common practice among 

 dealers. 



Old and New Oats. — It becomes an important matter from 

 a dietetic point of view to determine between old and new 

 oats, and there can be no doubt the question is a difficult 

 one for the layman to decide, but the following may help : 



New oats are softer than old, and if of the bearded variety 

 the beards are well preserved. With age these get rubbed 

 off by attrition in the sack. The same remark applies to 

 the pointed ends of the seed which show signs of wear in 

 the old oat while in the new the ends are intact. Fraudu- 

 lent dealers endeavour to imitate this by clipping the ends 

 of new oats to make them appear old. There is a general 

 appearance of freshness about new oats, with a glazed, 

 almost shiny, exterior which is absent in old oats. 



Oats should be kept a year to mature before use. During 

 this time they lose some of their moisture, and an attempt 

 has been made to anticipate this by kiln-drying them. 

 Kiln-dried oats bear a very bad name, but the mere fact of 

 drying oats in a kiln does them no harm. The truth is 

 that in the past attempts have been made to try and save 

 damaged oats by kiln-drying them, and though in this way 

 it is quite possible to stop further chemical change, yet 

 it does not make good oats out of bad. 



Kiln-dried Oats have been known to give rise to serious 

 urinary trouble. This is not due to the drying, but to the 

 damaged condition of the grain before drying ; the sole 

 object of drying is to try and control the chemical change. 



Oats in considerable quantities are imported into the 

 kingdom in bulk, and if these are new they all have to be 

 kiln-dried before they can be carried, or else they would 

 heat, but it does them no damage. To condemn oats for 

 being kiln dried is absurd, to condemn them as damaged is 

 quite another thing. 



It is mainly on board ship that foreign bodies like nails, 



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