OASTLER, RICHARD English reformer, was born at Leeds on Dec. 20, 1789, and in 1820 succeeded his father as steward of the Thornhills' extensive Fixby estates at Hudders field, Yorkshire. In 1830 John Wood, a Bradford manufacturer, called Oastler's attention to the evils of child employment in the factories of the district. Oastler at once started a campaign against the existing labour conditions by a vigorous letter, under the title "Yorkshire Slavery," to the Leeds Mercury. After many years of agitation, in which Oastler played a leading part, the Ten Hours Bill and other Factory Acts were passed, Oastler's ener getic advocacy of the factory-workers' cause procuring him the title of "The Factory King." In 1838, however, owing to his opposition to the new poor law and his resistance of the com missioners, he had been dismissed from his stewardship at Fixby; and, in 1840, being unable to repay £2,000 which he owed his late employer, Thomas Thornhill, he was sent to the Fleet prison, where he remained for over three years. From prison he published the Fleet Papers, a weekly paper devoted to the discussion of factory and poor-law questions. In 1844 his friends raised a fund to pay his debt, and on his release he made a triumphant entry into Huddersfield. Oastler died on Aug. 22, 1861.
See W. R. Croft, The History of the Factory Movement, or, Oastler and his Times (1888).
Cultivated Oats.—The various cultivated oats seem to have been derived from the wild species, A. fatua, A. sterilis and A. barbata. A. strigosa is "the bristle-pointed The white and black varieties of this species were cultivated on poor exposed land in Scotland. The "naked oat," A. nuda, was found by Bunge in waste ground about Peking; it was identified by the botanist Lindley with the pilcorn of the old agriculture ; it was in culti vation in England in the i3th century. Both this and the "corn mon otes," A. vesca, are described by Gerard. Parkinson tells us that in his time (early in the 17th century) the naked oat was sown in sundry places, but "nothing so frequent" as the common sort. The chief differences between A. fatua (wild oat) and the cultivated oat, are that in the former the chaff-scales which adhere to the grain are thick and hairy, and in the latter they are not so coarse and are hairless. The wild oat, moreover, has a long stiff awn, usually twisted near the base. In the cultivated oat it may be wanting, and if present it is not so stiff and is seldom bent. The grain is very small and worthless in the one, but larger and full in the other. The many varieties of the cultivated oat
are included under two principal races—common oat or panicled oat with a spreading panicle, A. sativa proper, and Tatarian oats or banner oats which is often regarded as a distinct species, A. orientalis, with contracted one-sided panicles. With regard to the antiquity of the oat, A. de Candolle observes that it was not cultivated by the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the ancient Greeks or the Romans. Central Europe appears to be the locality where it was cultivated earliest, at least in Europe, for grains have been found among the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings perhaps not earlier than the bronze age, while Pliny alludes to bread made of it by the ancient Germans. Pickering also records Galen's obser vations (De Alim. Fac. i. 14), that it was abundant in Asia Minor where it was made into bread as well as given to horses.
Besides the use of the straw when cut up and mixed with other food for fodder, the oat grain constitutes an important food for both man and beast. The oat grain (excepting the naked oat), like that of barley, is closely invested by the husk. Oatmeal is made from the kiln-dried grain from which the husks have been removed ; and the form of the food is the well-known "porridge." In Ireland, where it is sometimes mixed with Indian-corn meal, it is called "stirabout." Groats or grits are the whole kernel from which the husk is removed. Their use is for gruel, which used to be consumed as an ordinary drink in the 17th century at the coffee-houses in London. The meal can be baked into "cake" or biscuit, as the Passover cake of the Jews; but it cannot be made into loaves in consequence of the great difficulty in rupturing the starch grains, unless the temperature be raised to a considerable height. With regard to the nutritive value of oatmeal, as com pared with that of wheat flour, it contains a higher percentage of albuminoids than any other grain, viz. 12.6—that of wheat being ro.8—and less of starch, 58.4 as against 66.3 in wheat. It has rather more sugar, viz. 5.4—wheat having 4.2—and a good deal more fat, viz. 5.6, as against 2.0 in flour. Lastly, salts amount to 3.o% in oat, but are only 1.7 in wheat. Its nutritive value, there fore, is higher than that of ordinary seconds flour.
Economically, the oat ranks as one of the most valuable cereals. In 1937 the total world production, exclusive of Russia and China, was estimated at 4,429,000,000 bu. of 32 lb. each, of which the United States contributed 1,146,258,00o and Canada, 291,622,000. Germany yielded 404,304,000 bu.; France, 313,987,000; Poland, 266,034,000; and the United Kingdom, 165,000,000. (See OATS : CULTIVATION AND TRADE. ) For details see A. de Candolle, Origin of Cultivated Plants (1884); W. W. Robbins, Botany of Crop Plants (Philadelphia, ; J. Perci val, Agricultural Botany, (7th ed., 1926).