THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH GRASSES. 71 
by a different process, which we can now only shortly detail. 
On the examination of stray plants of oats from shed 
seeds, where the year before oats had been the crop, examples 
are not uncommon with a few hairs at the base of the floret, 
whilst the awn will be mostly stiffer than those in the crop ; 
and this on thin soils, where wild oat is not usual as a weed. 
Again on stiff clays, in which the weed prevails, many inter- 
mediate forms or degrees of wildness will be observable, 
perhaps derivable from the cultivated oats brought to the 
soil in manures. 
But further, if we examine oats grown on good oat-lands, 
we are aware of the following characteristics—a greater 
weight to the bushel, and a more plump grain with a finer 
coat and the awns scarcely more than bristles; and, as we 
know from observation, these qualities are immediately 
reversed if we sow good oats from a favourable oat-soil 
in a district unfavourable to the growth of this corn. 
Here, then, the result of our experiments and observa- 
tions is to show that the wild oat by cultivation will yield 
different sorts of a cultivated or crop oat; so that new 
varieties, and that direct from the original source, are easily 
attainable; and also that the cultivated oat may degenerate 
into the wild form from which it has sprung, and in some 
soils in a very short space of time.* 
A, strigosa, like fatwa, is in all probability derived from 
some cultivated form, or, as Professor Lindley has hinted, it 
may be the wild form from which some cultivated examples 
have been derived ; it is only found as an agrarian, and that 
very rarely, being more common in Scotland than in Eng- 
land, its place with us being supplied by the A. fatua. 
Avena pratensis, in the stiff untractable land in which it 
delights to grow, can only be considered as a pasture weed, 
which, however, can soon be got rid of by draining and 
better cultivation; in short, whatever tends to the ameliora- 
* In this Report several curious botanical changes which took place 
as the experiment progressed have not been noticed, as they would unne- 
cessarily burden the subject for the general reader, 
