60 
The Mechanical Condition of the Soil 
and the more genial weather of May gives less cause for 
anxiety. 
Oats. — This grain is usually sown either after roots or else 
upon a fresh-broken turf of grass or clover-ley. The natural 
energy of the root of the oat is much greater than that of barley, 
so that this plant rather resembles wheat in its powers of penetra- 
tion. This circumstance has a great influence upon the pre- 
paration which is desirable ; when oats are to be sown after roots, 
the ground is usually ploughed once, and time given to the 
surface to become mellow under the action of frost, before sowing. 
There is scarcely any difference between preparing grass or ley for 
oats, the chief modification being earlier ploughing in proportion 
to the toughness of the turf. An old turf, which must necessarily 
have got very tough, should be broken up not later than December ; 
whilst a two or three year old clover-ley would not require to be 
ploughed so early. It must be admitted that early ploughing of 
the turf is in no way objectionable, and in many respects advan- 
tageous, as the vegetable matter becomes rotted by the action of the 
weather. 
In ploughing turf up for oats the skim-coulter should be 
used, so as to favour the entire covering of the grass ; and it is 
often found that the land-presser is also of service for the 
more complete laying of the turf, so that the furrow may have a 
solid bearing with no hollow spaces beneath it. After the turf 
has been turned over and fairly established, either with or without 
the aid of the land-presser, the ground may be left until the seed- 
time comes. During this interval frosts are almost certain to 
have crumbled the surface and produced a nice light mould for 
the seed ; such land will then present the most desirable seed-bed 
for oats — a soil well charged with vegetable matter, firm beneath, 
yet easy of penetration for the rooting of the plant, with a surface 
light and free in its character for the germination of the seed. 
This firmness of land for the root must be distinguished from 
the hardness with which wheat will contend after it has once 
made a fair growth. 
I have known instances in which portions of fields have been 
so fearfully trodden during the winter (by no means an unusual 
circumstance in hunting-districts when a large number are in at 
the death), that all vestige of the wheat-plant has been destroyed, 
and yet at the following harvest the crop on such portions has 
heen very superior. This the oat could not stand against, for, 
whilst it requires a firm soil, it cannot flourish in a hard soil. 
Nothing suits the oat better than a turf ploughed down ; and, 
conversely, as a general rule there is nothing preferable to the 
oat for strong turf. In the north of England where the turf even 
of a clover-ley becomes too rank for wheat, the oat comes in as 
