New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 
65 
plants which fully matured and ripened before cutting produced heavier 
grain than those cut at early or medium maturity. 
Maercker * states from experiments carried on relating to the chem- 
ical composition of barley, that the harvest should be made at dead- 
ripeness, or at least full ripeness for good quality. If the above exper- 
iment does not point toward wrong conclusions, then it may reasonably 
be considered that good quality and heavy weight of grain occur to the 
most certain extent, other things being equal, when the grain is fully 
or dead ripe. 
Effect of Size of Seed on Resulting Oat Crop. 
From the farm granary 1,000 of the smallest and an equal number 
of the largest oat seed were carefully selected. While the aim was to 
secure extremes so far as size was concerned, the matter of vitality was 
not overlooked. The 1,000 large grains, which w T e will designate as A, 
weighed one and one-fourth ounces; the small lot nine-sixteenths of an 
ounce. On May 4 the lots A and B were planted side by side in four 
rows each, there being 250 seeds in each row. The clay-loam soil was 
fairly moist, not manured, and in a very good condition of tillage. The 
rows were placed two feet apart, the seed being about three inches apart 
in the row. 
On May 12 it was noted that the selected large seeds were vegetating 
more rapidly than were the small, and were making a good growth. 
On June 8 the number of vegetations were found to be as follows: 
Large seed, 823 plants; small, 650. June 23 it was noted that the 
plants on A rows were larger and more robust, and had a taller growth 
than the plants of B. As the season advanced the plants from large 
seed began to ripen slightly in advance over those from small seed. 
On August 6 both large and small seedings were cut. The plants of 
the individual rows of each lot were threshed separately, with the 
following results : 
ROW. 
LOT A — LAKGE. 
LOT B — SMALL. 
Grain. 
Straw. 
Grain. 
Straw. 
1 
2 
3 
4 
Total 
3 lbs. 4 ozs. 
2 lbs. 9 ozs. 
2 lbs. 10 ozs. 
3 lbs. 7 ozs. 
9 lbs. 2 ozs. 
8 lbs. 8 ozs. 
7 lbs. 15 ozs. 
9 lbs. 3 ozs. 
2 lbs. 6 ozs. 
1 lb. 14 ozs. 
2 lbs. 1 oz. 
2 lbs. 10 ozs. 
8 lbs. 11 ozs. 
7 lbs. 12 ozs. 
7 lbs. 13 ozs. 
8 lbs. 2 ozs. 
11 lbs. 14 ozs. 
34 lbs. 12 ozs. 
8 lbs. 15 ozs. 
32 lbs. 6 OZS. 
* Biedermann's Centralblatt fur Agrikulturchemie, 1886. 
9 
