AVENA SATIVA, Unn: 



[Ftie Plate III.] 



English, oats; Vernacular, jai. 



An annual herbaceous grass belonging to the tribe Avenece, of the natural order Cframinece. 

 Stems 2-4 ft. high, erect, polished. Leaves few ; sheaths long, smooth, striate, glaucous green; 

 ligule prominent, broad, truncate ; blade 5-6 in. long, linear lanceolate, tapering from the base, pale 

 green. Spilcelets few, laterally compressed, pendulous, arranged in large loose panicles, usually 2-3 

 flowered ; florets widely open when in flower, one sessile, one stalked, and a third reduced to a 

 slender stalked club-shaped rudiment ; glumes 2, about equal, |-1 in. in length, rounded on 

 the back, thin, membranous, veined, pale green, becoming white as the grain ripens ; pales 2, 

 shorter than the glumes, lower one faintly nerved, lanceolate, bifid, rounded on the back, smooth, 

 afterwards hard and firm, pale green, awned ; awn proceeding from the back of the pale and 1^ times 

 as long, rough and twisted ; upper pale rather shorter than the lower, thin, transparent, 2-toothed, 

 margins inflexed. Within the pales are two small ciliate scales (lodicules). Stamens 3, exserted ; 

 anthers yellow. Styles 2, short feathery, white. Fruit (the grain) closely covered by, but not ad- 

 herent to, the hard persistent pales, ^ in. in length, narrowly oval-oblong, hairy, and with a deep 

 furrow on the inside. 



Oats have only recently found their way into the agriculture of these Provinces, 

 through having been grown under English auspices round Cantonments and Stud depots 

 for the supply of horses. The only Divisions in which the cultivation of oats is report- 

 ed to exceed 500 acres are Meerut and Eohilkhand, in the former of which it extends to 

 5,000, and in the latter to 3,000, acres. The extent of the cultivation in the Meerut 

 Division is probably due to the influence of the Stud depots at Saharanpur and Hapur 

 (in the Meerut District), and it may be noted that the Meerut and Eohilkhand Divi- 

 sions are the only localities in the Provinces where horse breeding is largely practised 

 by natives. 



The cultivation of oats differs in no way from that of barley : they are, as a rule, 

 grown on the better class soils near village sites, three fields in every five being irrigated 

 in the Meerut Division, but only one field in every fifteen in Eohilkhand. With a copi- 

 ous supply of water it has been found that oats are an invaluable green fodder crop for 

 the cold season, yielding as many as three cuttings, and then making sufiicient growth 

 to bear a thin crop of grain. A large area under oats is most successfully treated in 

 this way each year at the Hissar Government Cattle Farm. When grown in this man- 

 ner they class rather as a green fodder than as a grain crop. 



Col. Parrot of the Saharanpur and Karnal Stud depots reports that oats appear to 

 exhaust soils very rapidly, and that even with manure and irrigation the outturn greatly 

 decreases if they are grown continuously on the same land. 



* References :— Linn. Sp. Pi. Ed. L p. 79 Bentley and Trimen Medicinal Plants, 292 ; Kunth Enum. PI, i. 301 ; Steud. 

 Syn. Gram, 230 ; DC. Geogr. Bot. 938. 



