A Classification of the Varieties of Cultivated Oats 163 
which should reasonably be expected to exhibit similar modifications under 
other environments. The key for the identification of varieties should 
therefore, under a wide range of environment, be effective to the point of 
fixing, at least within narrow limits, the identity of unknown forms. 
The choice of variety names herein made is not an attempt to standardize 
the nomenclature, but rather to point out the names under which the 
described varieties are probably most frequently grown. As previously 
explained, the name for a given variety was chosen when it occurred 
more frequently than any other name among specimens of the variety 
collected from many different sources. The nomenclature of varieties 
cannot properly be fixed by a single person acting independently of others 
who may prefer their own choice of names; but it is important to show 
that in the lack of a standard nomenclature the name applied to a variety 
very often has no significance, for numerous different names may be 
applied to the same form, and the same name may be applied to 
different forms. 
Finally, the classification does not take into account differences in the 
ability of varieties to yield. It is quite possible that many of the synonyms 
of a given variety may represent forms which differ greatly in this respect 
and yet exhibit no fundamental variations in structure by which they 
may be distinguished. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
The writer desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to Professor E. G. 
Montgomery, of the Department of Farm Crops, Cornell University, 
under whose direction the work was done, for valuable suggestions and 
criticisms; to C. W. Warburton, of the Office of Cereal Investigations, 
United States Department of Agriculture, for the gift of many of the 
specimens included in the classification of varieties; and to Miss Fanny E. 
Cassel for accurate and painstaking work in the illustration of grains 
and structural figures. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Atterberg, Albert 
1891 Neues System der Hafervarietaten nebst Beschreibung der 
nordischen Haferformen. Landw. Vers. Stat. 39: 171-204. 
Berry, R. A. 
1912 The oat kernel. British Assoc. Adv. Sci. Rept. 82:733-734. 
