In spite of the magnitude of the oat crop in the United States and the immense increase in produc tion in the last few years, the exportation of the grain has steadily decreased and the importation increased. It is evident, therefore, that there will be a good market for years to come. It should be the aim of the farmers of the United States, by more scientific growing and care of the crop, not only to supply the home demand but to build up an export trade as well.
Every grain - raising state has its grain-inspection rules and regulations. These are very similar in all the states. The Illinois Grain and Warehouse Commission has adopted the follow ing grades for oats : White oats, Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4.
White clipped oats, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.
Mixed oats, Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4.
The rules for grading read as follows : "No. 1 white oats shall be white, sound, clean, and reasonably free from other grain.
"No. 2 white oats shall be seven-eighths white, sweet, reasonably clean and reasonably free from other grains.
"No. 3 white oats shall be seven-eighths white but not sufficiently sound and clean for No. 2.
"No 4 white oats shall be seven-eighths white, damp, badly damaged, musty, or for some other cause unfit for No. 3." For clipped white oats the same rules apply ex cept that No. 1 must weigh thirty-six pounds, No. 2, thirty -four pounds, and No. 3, twenty -eight pounds to the measured bushel.
The rules for mixed oats are the same as those for white oats, except that all need not be white. It is very seldom that a carload of oats will grade No. 1. Of the four grades, more of No. 3 are re ceived in the market than of any other, and there are more of No. 4 than of No. 2. There is no rea son, except lack of care on the part of the growers, why the major part of the oats shipped should not grade No. 2 at least. Sowing, harvesting and threshing at the proper times will cause many oats that now grade No. 4 to grade No. 2. The market prices generally range from three to five cents higher per bushel for No. 2 than for No. 4 white oats. Thus, a field of eighty acres, producing fifty bushels to the acre, would yield 8,000 bushels of oats. A difference of five cents a bushel would increase the value of the crop $400, an amount which would pay for the extra care and labor involved and leave a fair profit besides.
Literature.
M. A. Carleton, Improvement of the Oat Crop, Fourteenth Annual Report, Kansas State Board of Agriculture, pp. 32-42, published at Topeka, Kan sas, 1904, by F. D. Coburn, Secretary ; F. L. Sar gent, Corn Plants : Their Uses and Ways of Life, Houghton, Mifflin S. Co., New York (1899), pp.
42-72; Thomas Shaw, Grasses and Clovers, Field Roots, Forage and Fodder Plants, Northrup, Bros Ian, Goodwin Company, Minneapolis (1895), pp. 94-96 ; Morrow and Hunt, Soils and Crops of the Farm, Howard and Wilson Publishing Company, Chicago (1892) ; Edward Hackel, The True Grasses, translated from the German by F. Lamson Scribner and E. A. Southwick, Henry Holt & Co., New York (1890), pp. 121-125 ; Thomas F. Hunt, The Cereals in America, Orange Judd Company, New York (1904) pp. 280-331 ; Bulletin No. 2, Aberdeen and North of Scotland College of Agriculture, 1905, pp. 1-37 ; Ohio Experiment Station, Bulletins Nos. 101-138. The reader will need to keep in touch with current Experiment Station literature if he desires to keep abreast the times.
The "Open Furrow" Method of Seeding Oats.
The oat is yearly becoming more prominent as one of the staple crops for the southern cotton-belt, its position being strongly emphasized by its en trance as an indispensable factor into the system of "triennial crop rotation" (page 98). In the past, however, oat-culture in the South has been largely influenced and its greater increase checked by two discouraging obstacles : (1) Because of the almost inevitable drought in April and May, spring oats are not successful. On the poor, stiff, red-clay land usually allotted to them, aside from their predis position to rust under such circumstances, the only variety reaching a height sufficient to cradle or reap is the "Burt," an oat with a lengthy stem but a light head, and therefore unprofitable. "Texas Red Rust-proof," the standard variety, is unfitted for sowing on poor land in the spring by reason of its shorter culm. (2) This necessitates fall-plant ing ; but it is usually impossible for the average farmer to seed down his fall oat plats in time for them to become sufficiently rooted to withstand the freezes of early winter, for his corn occupies the land that should go in oats and it must be gathered before the area is planted. The late seeding which this entails renders broadcast and hand-sown fall oats a most uncertain crop. A large percentage invariably succumbs to the cold. Difficulty has been experienced in the use of the seed drill. Unfortu nately, the extremely long awns of the "Texas Red Rust-proof" oat, and of its improved progeny, the "Appler" oat, cause the seed to clog in the delivery tubes and to produce, in consequence, an irregular stand.