O/i the Cultivation of Oats. 



109 



sMres, and the different varieties of clay denominated London and 

 Plastic clays. On all these soils it is desirable to introduce oats 

 into the rotation of cropping;, because of their unfitness for the 

 production of barley. VVheat and beans are the principal crops 

 cultivated, and could oats be profitably grown, their introduction 

 would serve the purpose of varying and lengthening out the 

 course of cropping. The better portions of these clay soils, when 

 properly drained, are well adapted to the growth of oats, but on 

 the stiffer, stronger^ and more tenacious class, it becomes exceed- 

 ingly precarious. Draining and liming would greatly modify 

 their stubborn character, and enable the farmer to grow oats 

 upon them as well as wheat and beans. The proper position for 

 the oat crop, when cultivated on clay soils, is after red clover, 

 and the ground should be ploughed early in winter, in narrow 

 ridges, in order that it may obtain the benefit of frost, and thus 

 become mellow and friable before seedtime. The seed should 

 be sown broadcast, for the sake of expedition, when the weather 

 is propitious, at the rate of four bushels to the acre, and harrowed 

 in as dry as possible. 



The Fen lands of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the ad- 

 joining counties, have long been famed for the excellence of the 

 crops of oats raised upon them, especially where they have been 

 drained and clayed. These fens furnish an illustration of the 

 fact that a certain degree of depth and dampness in the soil is 

 equivalent to, and can compensate to the plants growing upon it 

 for a high temperature and a lack of moisture in the atmosphere. 

 All d&ep alluvial soils, rich in vegetable matter, wherever situated 

 in the British Islands — excluding, of course, those isolated de- 

 posits on the higher elevations — when drained and limed, or pared 

 and burned, when there is an excess of undecomposed vegetable 

 matter, are peculiarly adapted to the production of oats. They 

 naturally possess, from their vegetable origin, the property of 

 capillary attraction in a high degree, and even when thoroughly 

 drained, they still preserve the requisite amount of moisture to 

 supply the plants with food in dry weather, while at the same 

 time they are less liable to be injured by an excess of rain than 

 heavy clay soils which bake with drought, and become soured 

 by long continued rains. In a wet or cold climate oats are the 

 only grain crop that can be cultivated with success on soils formed 

 principally of vegetable mould, and consequently we find this to be 

 the case generally in Scotland and Ireland, but in England, where 

 the fen lands enjoy a good climate, and are situated on the 

 clunch, or Oxford clay, the cultivation of wheat can also be pro- 

 fitably carried on by claying the surface. 



The most sterile soils for oats are those composed of loose 

 calcareous matter, such as the upper chalks of England^ and also 



