GEASS FAMILY. 



S95 



tensiveiy cultivated, in this country,— chiefly as food for horses. Dr. 

 JoHxsox took occasion, in compiling his Dictionary, to fling a sarcasn? 

 at the Scotch, by defining oats to be the food of horses in England, and 

 of men in Scotland — as if the effects of climate were a fit subject on 

 which to taunt a people ! Yet this was but one of many instances of his 

 national prejudice and illiberality. 



This grain succeeds better than Barley, in a thin soil ; and is there- 



fore frequently employed, in the rotation of crops, when Barley would 

 have been preferred, had the land been good. The A. nuda, L., called 

 " skinless oats," — a species nearly allied to this, but with 3 - 5-flowered 

 spikelets, and the caryopsis loosely covered by the paleas, — has been par- 

 tially cultivated, by the curious, on account of its superior fitness for 

 making Oat-meal, as an article of diet for the sick. 



23. AREHENATHE'RUM, Beauv. Oat-grass. 



[Greek, Ahrrhen, male, and Atlier, awn • the staminate floret being awned.] 



Spikelets 2-fl!owered with the rudiment of a third, terminal one ; middU 



Fig. 267. A 3-flowered spikelet of the Oat (A vena sativa), the two lower flowers fertile, 

 the lowermost awned, the uppermost abortive. 268. The pistil removed to exhibit the 

 scales at the base of the hairy ovary. 



