118 



On the Cultivation of Oats. 



already mentioned in coining later to maturity, having larger seeds 

 and thicker husks, but yielding better straw for fodder. The 

 " Late Angus Oat/' of which a drawing is appended, may be taken 

 as a type of the class generally. It and the Drummond oat are 

 well adapted for clay soils, and neither of them is so liable to 

 shed its seeds in high winds as any of the earlier sorts — the Sandy 

 excepted. The other sub- varieties of this class are Cupar Grange 

 oat, rather later than the two first mentioned ; Blainsley oat, re- 

 sembling the last, and much cultivated in the South of Scotland ; 

 and lastly, the Kildrummie oat, considered the most inferior of 

 its class. 



Late or common oats, as they are generally termed in Scotland, 

 produce the best crops in that country in warm and rather dry 

 years, on which account they would, no doubt, be found to grow 

 well in the drier and earlier climate of South England. They 

 grow freely on clay soils, and also on light poor soils, but should 

 never be cultivated on loamy land or vegetable mould, as they are 

 apt to produce too much leaf and become lodged. The grain, as 

 before stated, is usually larger, more awned, and has thicker 

 husks than the earlier sorts, but it is highly esteemed for feeding 

 horses with, and the straw makes decidedly the best fodder of any 

 of the cereal grains. In late years common oats are deficient in 

 mealing properties, but in early seasons the husk is much thinner, 

 and the produce of meal proportionally increased. They are 

 remarkably well liked by millers on account of the flinty texture 

 of the kernel and the superior quality of the meal they yield. The 

 difference between the meal of the common or late oat and the 

 potato oat is as great as that between the flour of what is termed 

 flinty wheat and that produced from the softer and starchier sorts. 

 The one has a granular roughness which the other is devoid of. 



Coloured Oats. — These are black, dun, or grey. The Black 

 Tartarian oat is almost the only variety of the first mentioned sort 

 cultivated in Britain. It differs from all others in carrying its 

 seeds on one side of the ear. The grain is of a shining black 

 colour, much elongated, and when badly grown very much bearded 

 or awned at the thin end. The straw is tall, thick, and reedy, 

 and not well adapted for fodder. The Tartarian oat is particu- 

 larly well suited for marshy or peaty soils, and not unfrequently 

 yields from 80 to 90 bushels per statute acre, where the ground 

 has been clayed or gravelled, and is otherwise in good condition. 

 It grows well also on high-lying late soils, to which its property 

 of ripening early is well adapted, but as it loves moisture neither 

 a dry climate nor a dry soil is favourable to its growth. The 

 writer has tried the cultivation of Tartarian oats on a dry trap 

 soil, but always with results greatly inferior to those obtained 

 from the white-skinned varieties. It is an excellent oat for feed- 



