On the Cultivation of Oats. 



107 



of wheat and barley in the former country. In other countries 

 too, both on the continents of Europe and America, lying within 

 the same parallels of latitude as Scotland and the North of 

 England, the crops of oats are always inferior owing to the high 

 range of summer temperature that prevails. We may safely con- 

 clude, therefore, that the northern parts of Britain, and nearly 

 the whole of Ireland, owe their oat-producing capabilities pri- 

 marily to their insular position, and secondarily to their moun- 

 tainous character — a combination which not only occasions the 

 existence of a large amount of aqueous vapour in the atmosphere, 

 but also insures its deposition on the ground in the form of 

 refreshing rains, mists, and dews. 



But natural causes originating in the soil and climate are mo- 

 dified in their results by cultivation, and hence we may infer that 

 as improved practices in husbandry have rendered Scotland better 

 adapted to the growth of wheat and barley than it was fifty years 

 ago, so may they modify the effects of the soil and climate of 

 South England, and render the cultivation of oats, where that is 

 desirable, a matter of greater certainty and success than it has 

 hitherto been. 



From what has been said it will be seen that the successful culti- 

 vation of oats depends more upon a moderate degree of temperature 

 and moisture in the atmosphere than upon the nature of the soil ; 

 and as a proof of this we find that good farming produces good 

 crops of oats on nearly all varieties of soil in Scotland. Of 

 course there are some soils naturally better adapted to their 

 growth than others, and there are also certain districts where one 

 variety of oats succeeds while another fails, but neither of these 

 affects the point in question — -they only prove that there are 

 differences of degree in the success attending the cultivation of a 

 crop. We shall therefore proceed to consider in detail the several 

 classes of soils upon which oats may be grown successfully, and 

 those also, comprising a very few, that are not adapted to their 

 growth. 



Soils best adapted to the Groioth of Oats. — The best soils for 

 the earlier varieties of oats, such as the Potato Oat, Sandy, Sherriff, 

 Hopetoun, <Scc., are those derived from the alluvial deposits of 

 the trap and new red sandstone formations which form the lower 

 parts of valleys, and the more level portions of the country, where 

 these rocks abound. The richer class of granite soils are also 

 well adapted for early oats. As a general rule we may state that 

 wherever a soil has been formed by the alluvium of rocks or strata 

 not characterised by the presence of too great an amount of 

 aluminous or clayey matter, there we have a soil which, if drained 

 and in proper condition, will produce excellent crops of the finer 

 varieties of oats. The county of East Lothian, mostly consisting 



