OAT, or OATS, Avena, a genus of grasses, containing many species, among which are some valuable for the grain which they produce, and some useful for hay. The Lineman gams aivna, less natural than most of the Linnwan genera, has been much broken up. The genus, as now restricted, has the spikelets in loose panicles, the glumes as long as the florets, and containing two or more florets; the palem firm, and almost cartilaginous, the outer palea of each floret, or of one or more of the florets, bearing on the back a knee-jointed awn, which is twisted at the base. The awn, however, tends to disappear, and often wholly disappears in cultivation. Those species which are cultivated as corn plants have comparatively large spikelets and seeds, the spikelets—at least after flower ing—pendulous. The native country of the cultivated oats is unknown, although most probably it is central Asia. There is no reference, however, to the oat in the Old Testa ment; and although it was known to the Greeks. who called it broinos, and to the Romans, it is probable that they derived their knowledge of it from the Celts; Germans, and other northern nations. It is a grain better suited to moist than to dry, and to cold than to warm climates, although it does not extend so far north as the coarse kinds of barley. The grain is either used in the form if groats (q.v.) or made into meal. Oat meal cakes and porridge form great part of the food of the peasantry of Scotland and of some other c/untries. No grain is so much esteemed for feeding horses. Besides large quantity of starch—about 65 per cent—and some sugar, gum, and oil, the grain of oats.coutains almost 20 per cent of nitrogenous principles, or protelne (q.v.) com pounds, of which about 16 or 17 parts are avenine, a substance very similar to easel ne (q.v.), and two or three pares gluten, the remainder albumen. The husk of oats is also nutritious, and is mixed with other food for horses, oxen, and sheep. From the starchy particles adhering to the husk or seeds after the separation of the grain, a light dish, called somans is made in Scotland by means of boiling water, was once very popular, and is very suitable for weak stomachs. The grain is sometimes mixed with barley for distillation. The Russian beverage called guass is made from oats. The straw of oats is very useful as fodder, bringing a higher price than any other kind of straw.—The varieties of oats in cultivation are very numerous, and some highly esteemed varieties are of recent and well-known origin. It is doubtful if they really belong to more than one species; but the following are very generally distinguished as species: 1. COMMON OAT (A. satita.), having a very loose p3uicle, which spreads on all sides, and two or three fertile florets in each spikelet, the palm quite smooth, not more than one floret awned; 2. TAIITARIAN OAT (A. orientally), also called HUNGARIAN OAT and SIBERIAN Oar, distinguished chiefly by having the panicle much more contracted, and all turned to one side; 3. NaicEn OAT (A. nude), differing from the Tartarian oat chiefly in having the palm very slightly adherent to the seeds, which, therefore, fall readily out of them, whilst in the other kinds they adhere closely; 4. CHINESE OAT (21.Chine7246), which agrees with the last in the characters of the palm and seeds, but is more like the common oat in its panicle, and has more numerous florets, 4–S. in the spikelet; Snowr 0.vr (A. brevis), which has a close panicle turned to one side, the spikelets containing only one or two florets. each floret awned, the grains short. Almost all the varieties of oat in cultivation belong to the first and second of these species. The naked oat is culti vated in Austria, but is not much esteemed. The Chinese oat, said to have been brought by the Russians from the north of China, is prolific, but the grain is easily shaken out by winds. The short oat is cultivated as a grain-crop on poor soils at high elevations in the mountainous parts of France and Spain, ripening where other kinds do not; it is also cultivated in some parts of Europe as a forage plant. Besides
these, there is another kind of oat, the BRISTLE-POINTED OAT (A. strigosa). regarded by some botanists as belonging even to a distinct genus, dantlionia, because the lower palea is much pre_onged, and instead of merely being bifid at the point, as in the other oats, is divided into two long teeth, extending into bristles. The panicle is inclined to one side, very little branched; the florets, 2 or 3 in a spikelet, a11 awned, the grain rather small. This plant is common in corn-fields, is cultivated in many countries, but chiefly on poor soils, and was at one time much cultivated in Scotland, but is now scarcely to be seen as a crop. Not unlike this, but with the panicle spreading equally on all sides, the outer palea merely bitid, and lone hairs at the base of the glumes, is the WILD OAT (A. fatua), also frequent in corn-fields, and a variety of which is cultivated in some northern countries for meal, but which is more generally regarded by farmers as a weed to be extirpated, springing up so abundantly in some districts as to choke crops of better grain. 'Its awns have rnueliaaf the hygrornetrical Property which g,ain$ for A. sterills, a species found in the south of Europe, the name of the ANIMAL OAT, because the seeds when ripe and fallen on the ground resemble insects, and move about ire an extraordinary manner through the twisting and untwisting of thC awns. The seed of the WILD OAT has been sometimes used instead of an artificial fly for trout. Amongst the species of oat useful not for their grain but for fodder are theDOWISY OAT-GRASS (A. palsscols) and YELLOW OAT-GRASS (A. ilavescens), both referred by some botanists to the genus trisetum—the short awn being like a middle tooth in the bifid palea—and both natives of Britain, the former growing on light ground and dry hills, especially where the soil is calcareous, the latter on light .meadow lands. Other species are found in Britain, continental Europe, North America, Australia, etc. In some parts of the Sahara are bottoms of ravines richly productive of a species of oat-grass (A. Forskalii) much relished by camels.
Far more ground is occupied with oats in Scotland than with any other grain. In all the higher districts, it is almost the only kind of grain which is cultivated. Through out Scotland it is the crop that is chiefly sown after land has been in pasture for one or more years. The seed is generally sown broadcast over the plowed land, whiqh is after wards well harrowed and pulverized. It is of the utmost importance to have the latter operations well done, as it prevents the attacks of insect larvae. On soils that are infested with annual weeds, such as charlock, it is common to drill the seed, which per mits the land to be hand-hoed and thoroughly cleaned. Oats thrive best upon deep and rich soils, and yield but poorly on thin sandy soils, where they suffer sooner from drought than barley, rye, or wheat. On good soils, it is common to dress oats with 2 to 3 cwts. of guano to the acre. The plant is not easily injured by large applications of heterogeneous manures. The potato oat is a variety generally cultivated in the best soils and climates. It is an early and productive variety. The Hopetoun oat is also much sown in the earliest districts. The sandy oat is still more largely sown, more particularly when the climate is inferior and wet. It is not liable to be lodged with rains, and the straw is of fine quality for fodder. All these are varieties of the common oat. The white and black Tartarian are much cultivated in some districts. They are very pro ductive. On the continent of Europe this grain is seldom seen of quality equal to what is produced in Scotland; and even in most parts of England the climate is less suitable to it, and it is less plump and rich.