On the Cultivation of Oats. 



123 



may, therefore, be worthy of experiment for the south England 

 farmer — especially on fine land — to sow one or other of the finer 

 sorts of oats, such as the Sandy, or late white varieties, instead 

 of the coarser sorts. 



Another important element in the cultivation of oats in a dry^ 

 warm climate is the quantity of seed that should be sown per 

 acre. It is a pretty generally acknowledged fact that a much 

 smaller quantity of seed is required in a dry climate than in a 

 moist one. A thin sown crop will resist more drought than a 

 thicker one, simply because the roots of the plants being fewer, 

 are stronger and strike deeper into the moist subsoil. The 

 common occurrence of a thickly sown crop turning yellow by 

 continued drought, while the thinner seeded one retained its 

 green hue under the same circumstances, cannot have escaped 

 the notice of even the most unobservant, and certainly if the 

 growing of oats in the dry climate of South England is ever to 

 equal that of the moister, cooler, and in this respect, more highly 

 favoured districts to the north of the Tweed, thin and early sowing 

 must be adopted. 



General Management. — The established order of succession in 

 nearly every good rotation of crops, places oats after grass either 

 depastured or cut for hay. Throughout Scotland this rule is 

 nearly absolute, although there are some cases afterwards to be 

 mentioned where oats follow green crops. When sown after grass 

 there are several modes of managing the land. If it has lain 

 one year and been depastured by sheep, it is considered to be 

 in as good order for producing a crop of oats as if it had been 

 grazed two years by cattle, owing to the more equal distribu- 

 tion of the manure over the surface by the former. On first 

 class soils excellent crops of oats can be grown ^ after clover 

 and rye-grass, either cut for hay or soiling. On secondary soils 

 something more is required in order to obtain similar results, con- 

 sequently the practice of all good farmers is to pasture at least 

 one year with sheep or two years with cattle before breaking up 

 the field for oats, and if the grass has been cut for hay the after- 

 math should be depastured, and during the following winter the 

 whole surface regularly folded over by sheep eating turnips, and 

 cake or grain. In this case 1 acre of turnips (say 20 tons) will 

 go over 3 acres of lea, and the dung made from their consump- 

 tion by sheep will produce as good a crop of oats as one year's 

 pasture by sheep, or two years by cattle. On inferior soils the 

 grass should always remain two or three years in pasture, and 

 this will be found the most profitable plan of managing them. 

 The following crop of oats has every chance to be a good one 

 when this plan is pursued, and all the other crops during the 

 rotation will be benefited by having a store of slowly decompos- 



