The chief use of oats is for cattle food, especially for horses. It is extraordinarily rich in its nutritive constituents and, therefore, is prized highly as a food in the building and restoration of nitrogen tissues, such as the muscles. The variety in common cultivation is Avena sativa L.
Oats are grown in almost every part of the United States, but chiefly in the northern and western portions. In the southern states the crop is planted in the late autumn or early winter. In the northern states it is chiefly a spring crop, being sown early in the spring as soon as the ground is in fair condition. The oat crop is one which requires a rather abundant and well-distributed rainfall. A spring drought is very detrimental to the growth of oats, much more so than wheat or rye. It is a crop which is well suited to be grown under irrigation.
There are many varieties of oats in cultivation, but in general characteristics they all correspond to one description. The husk adheres firmly to the grain, and when threshed the grain of a common variety of oat carries the first layer of husk or chaff with it. Oats, as bought in the market, therefore, consist not only of the kernel or grain but also of this outer, chaffy envelope. The magnitude of the crop in the United States is very great, but only an inconsiderable proportion of the whole is used for human food, and this chiefly in some form of oatmeal. The statistics of the crop grown in the United States during 1906 are given in the following table:
Acreage, 30,958,768
Yield per acre, bushels, 31.2
Total yield, bushels, 964,904,522
Price per bushel, cents, 31.7
Total value at farm, $306,292,978
Ratio of Kernel to Hull.—Numerous examinations of unhulled oats show that the average percentage of kernel to hull for 100 parts is as 73 to 27. In the oats grown in the western states the proportion of kernel is relatively higher and in the southern states lower.
In the analytical process if the hull or chaff is ground with the grain the proportion of fiber or crude cellulose is very considerably higher than in the class of cereals ground without the chaff. The mean composition of unhulled kernels of oats of American growth is represented by the following table:
Weight of 100 unhulled grains, 2.92 grams
Moisture, 10.06 percent
Protein, 12.15 "
Ether extract, 4.33 "
Crude fiber, 12.07 "
Ash, 3.46 "
Starch and sugar, 57.93 "
A study of the above data shows that the flour of unhulled oats is rich in fat, fiber, and ash. The large percentage of fiber and ash is due to a great degree
