GEOGRAPHICAL PHASES OF FARM PRICES I OATS. 5 
As less than 4 per cent of the national production was exported in 
1911-1915, on an average, it is evident that domestic requirements 
absorbed nearly the entire crop. 
Farm consumption absorbs 72 per cent of the crop. According 
to the 1909 census only a third of the harvest is sold, the remaining 
two-thirds never leaving the counties in which it is produced. A 
small part of the third sold is shipped back to farms for consumption. 
Urban markets receive about a third of the national production. 
This third includes the export oa-ts and the small percentage shipped 
to farms, but most of it is for urban consumption. In urban con- 
sumption the chief item is the requirement for horses. Other items 
are the quantity which enters merchant flour mills, about 50 million 
bushels, and the uses for human food in the form of rolled oats and 
breakfast foods. The latter uses take up the higher grades of oats. 
The census for 1909 reported 50 million bushels consumed in merchant 
flour mills, of which 36 million bushels were manufactured " chiefly 
for human food" and 14 million bushels " chiefly for stock feed." 
In 1909 the quantity entering custom flour mills was reported to be 
13 million bushels. 
Uses of oats may be grouped under the four headings : (1) Live stock 
consumption, (2) seed, (3) human consumption, and (4) export. Many 
million bushels are required for seed, human consumption, and ex- 
port, but such uses do not absorb normally more than one-fourth of 
the crop. 
Requirements for live stock, according to an estimate made in 1914, 
took up approximately three-fourths of the production of the United 
States, of which more than half a billion bushels, or over 60 per cent 
of the oats used on farms, were fed to horses and mules. Adding to 
this figure the quantities fed to animals not on farms, the aggregate 
consumption by horses and mules was possibly at least one-half of 
the national production. 
LOCAL VARIATION IN USES OF OATS. 
There is much variation throughout the country in farm practice 
as to feeding or selling, in the various uses of oats, and in methods of 
marketing. Used interchangeably with other crops, consumption in 
any section depends upon price, local production, and the abundance 
of other feeds. 
Where corn is scarce and high in price, as in the Pacific States, a 
larger use is made of oats and barley for feeding purposes. In many 
sections of the West and South, oats are cut for hay. A special 
investigation for the State of Tennessee * showed that about 49 per 
cent of the crop of the State was fed in the straw and 51 per cent was 
thrashed. 
i Monthly Crop Report, March, 1916, p. 21. 
