A crop of potato oats, yielding 60 bushels to the acre, at 47 lbs. per bushel, will weigh of grain 1 ton 5 cwts. 20 lbs., and will yield of straw 1 ton 5 cwts. 16 lbs., in the neighbourhood of a large town; or, in other words, will yield 8 kemples of 40 windlings each, and each windling 9 lbs. in weight. But I have been made acquainted with a crop of Hopetoun oats near Edinburgh, of no more than 60 bushels to the imperial acre, yielding 2 tons 18 cwts. 16 lbs. of straw. The common oats yield more straw, in proportion to the grain, than the potato variety. In particular spots, such as on the banks of the river Islay, near CouparAngus, 114 bushels per imperial acre, of potato oats, have been frequently reaped.

1931. The portion of the oat crop consumed by man is manufactured into meal. It is never called flour, as the millstones are not set so close in grinding it as when wheat is ground, nor are the stones for grinding oats made of the same material, but most frequently only of sandstone-the old red sandstone or greywacke. Oats, unlike wheat, are always kiln-dried before being ground; and they undergo this process for the purpose of causing the thick husk, in which the substance of the grain is enveloped, to be the more easily ground off, which it is by the stones being set wide asunder; and the husk is blown away, on being winnowed by the fanner, and the grain retained, which is then called groats. The groats are ground by the stones closer set, and yield the meal. The meal is then passed through sieves, to separate the thin husk from the meal. The meal is made in two states: one fine, which is the state best adapted for making into bread, in the form called oat-cake or bannocks; and the other is coarser or rounder ground, and is in the best state for making the common food of the country people-porridge, Scotticè, parritch. A difference of custom prevails in respect to the use of these two different states of oatmeal, in different parts of the country, the fine meal being best liked for all purposes in the northern, and the round or coarse meal in the southern counties; but as oatcake is chiefly eaten in the north, the meal is there made to suit the purpose of bread rather than of porridge; whereas, in the south, bread is made from another grain, and oatmeal is there used only as porridge. There is no doubt that the round meal makes the best porridge, when properly made-that is, seasoned with salt, and boiled as long as to allow the particles to swell and burst, when the porridge becomes a pultaceous mass. So made, with rich milk or cream, few more wholesome dishes can be partaken by any man, or upon which a harder day's work can be wrought. Children of all ranks in Scotland are brought up on this diet, verifying the poet's assertion,

"The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food." BURNS.

Forfarshire has long been famed for the quality of its brose and oat-cake, while the porridge of

* Raspail's Organic Chemistry, p. 113.

the Borders has as long been equally famous. It is so every where, the sharp soil producing the finest cake-meal, and clay land the best meal for boiling. Of meal from the varieties of the oat cultivated, that of the common Angus oat is the most thrifty for a poor man, though its yield in meal is less in proportion to the bulk of corn.

1932. In regard to the yield of meal from any given quantity of oats, when they give half their weight of meal, they are said to give even meal. Supposing a boll of oats of 6 bushels to weigh 16 stones, it should give 8 stones or 16 pecks of meal, and, of course, 8 stones of refuse to yield even meal. But the finer class of oats will give more meal in proportion to weight than this-some nearly 9 stones, and others as much as 12 stones. The market value of oats is therefore estimated by the meal they are supposed to yield, and, in discovering this property in the sample, millers become very expert. When oats yield less than even meal they are considered to give ill, or are unprofitable to make into meal, and are disposed of for horses, or kept at home for that purpose.

1933. "The farina of the oat seems, to the unassisted eye, cottony, or, as it were, felted, from the presence of an innumerable quantity of hairs with which the seeds are covered. The grains of the fecula have a size of about 00276 by 0018 of an inch. They appear in general yellowish, and strongly shaded. Some of these have the appearance, but not the form, of the fecula of the potato."

1934. The chemical analysis of the oat has been carefully investigated, within these few years, by Mr Norton, of Newhaven, in the United States of America, whilst an assistant in the laboratory of the Chemistry Association of Scotland in Edinburgh; and some of the results thus obtained I have already given, such as the composition of the grain of the oat in (1292,) the per-centage of ash in it in (462,) and the composition of the ash in (1294.)+

1935. "We find no mention made of oats in Scripture," says Phillips, "which expressly states that Solomon's horses and dromedaries were fed with barley," but "the use of oats as a provender for horses appears to have been known in Rome as early as the Christian era, as we find that that capricious and profligate tyrant, Caligula, fed Incitatus, his favourite horse, with gilt oats out of a golden cup." Oats are mixed with barley in the distillation of spirits from raw grain; and "the Muscovites make an ale or drink of oats, which is of so hot a nature, and so strong, that it intoxicates sooner than the richest wine."‡

1936. "The oat (arena sativa) is cultivated extensively in Scotland, to the extreme north point, in lat. 58° 40′. In Norway its culture

extends to lat. 56°; in Sweden to lat. 63° 30'. In Russia, its polar limits appear to correspond with those of rye. Whilst, in general, oats is cultivated for the feeding of horses, in Scotland and in Lancashire, it forms a considerable portion of the usual food of the people. This is also the case in some countries of Germany, especially in the south of Westphalia, where the inhabitants of the "Sauerlands" live on oaten bread. South of the parallel of Paris oats is little cultivated; in Spain and Portugal it is scarcely known; yet it is cultivated with considerable advantage in Bengal, to the parallel of lat. 25° N."*

1937. Oatmeal has long been the ordinary food of the Scottish ploughman, and in several districts of that country he lives upon it three times a-day, consuming a stone every week; and a stouter and more healthy man cannot be seen. It was considered a rather anomalous circumstance to find men thriving as well on oatmeal as on wheat bread and butcher meat; but the anomaly has been cleared up by the investigations of chemistry. In the analysis of the oat in (1292,) it may be seen that the grain contains fully 7 per cent of oil or fat, and 17 per cent of aveninea protein compound, as the gluten of wheat ismaking together 24 per cent of really nutritive matter, capable of supporting the loss incurred by labour of the fibrous portion of the body. All vegetables contain fat, and the largest proportion of vegetable fats contain the elaic and margaric acids, mixed with a small proportion of the stearic. The elaic is always in a fluid state, and the margaric and stearic in a solid; and of the latter two, the margaric is much less, and the stearic acid very much greater in animal fat than in those of plants, (1600.) It is by the dissipation of this oil or fat by heat, in baking, that the agreeable odour of the oatcake is at once recognised on approaching the humble cottage of the labouring man.

1938. Dr Robert D. Thomson recommends that, "when it is proposed to make a loaf of oatmeal and flour, the common oatmeal should be sifted so as to obtain the finest portion of the meal, or it may be ground to the proper consistence. This should be mixed with an equal weight of best flour-Canadian, for example-and fermented. I have not succeeded in making a good loaf with a smaller amount of flour than a half, although I have tried it in various proportions. If we were to attempt to raise oatmeal without an admixture with flour, in consequence of the absence of gluten, that principle which retains the carbonic acid of fermentation, we should obtain only a sad, heavy, doughy piece of moist flour. This form of bread, it appears to me, and to many who have examined it, would be a great improvement on the hard, dry oat-cakes, so much used in the more unfrequented parts of our country, where the inhabitants have scarcely as yet commenced to share in what are in other localities considered to be necessaries of life."+

1939. When Dr Thomson avers, "If we were to attempt to raise oatmeal without an admixture with flour, in consequence of the absence of gluten, that principle which retains the carbonic acid of fermentation, we should obtain only a sad, heavy, doughy piece of moist flour," he must never have seen or tasted the fine barm-raised oatmeal loaves, used with beer, at the harvest-dinners in Forfarshire, and which are relished by the workpeople there much better than the best wheaten bread. Such an oatloaf, with fresh butter and new honey, forms a most delightful relish at the farmer's harvest breakfast or tea table.

Fig. 187.

EAR OF RYE.

1940. Rye-Botanically, this plant occupies the class Triandria, order Digynia,genus Secale, of the Linnæan system; the order Gramineæ of Jussieu; and class iv. Endogens, alliance 7, Glumales, order 29, Graminacea, genus 11 Secale, of the natural system of Lindley. It is the Secale cereale of the botanists, so called, it is said, from á secando, to cut, as opposed to leguminous plants, whose fruits used to be gathered by the hand. A figure of the spike of rye is shown in fig. 187, and is not unlike the spike of a hungry bearded wheat. There is only one known species of this plant, which is said to be a native of Candia, and was known in Egypt 3300 years ago; but there are several varieties which are raised as food, 4 of which are described by Mr Lawson,‡ and 7 to be seen in the Museum of the Highland and Agricultural Society.§

Phytology, Map No. 2. Food of Animals, p. 176.

§ Catalogue of the Museum, p. 62.

"The gluten of rye," says Dr Thomson, " differs in several particulars from that of wheat. It is less tenacious and more soluble. When it was allowed to ferment, Einhoff perceived a strong smell of nitric acid, which is peculiar to this species of gluten. The starch of rye bears a striking resemblance to that of wheat. Like this last, it does not form a colourless solution with boiling water, and always precipitates at last, when the solution is left a sufficient time to rest."*

1945. The grains of the fecula of rye meal are peculiarly shaped. "The largest grains of this fecula," says Raspail, "are about 002 of an inch in size; but what distinguishes them from all the other varieties is, that they are flattened, and with sharp edges like discs, and for the most part marked on one of their sides with a black cross, or three black rays united at the centre of the grain."+

1946. In a crop of 25 bushels to the acre, weighing 1300 lbs., the nutritive matter derived from rye consists of 130 lbs. to 260 lbs. of husk or woody fibre; 780 lbs. of starch, sugar &c.; 130 lbs. to 230 lbs. of gluten, &c. ; 40 lbs. to 50 lbs. of oil or fat; and 26 lbs. of saline matter.

the British islands. Rye-bread still forms the principal sustenance of at least one-third of the population of Europe; it is the characteristic grain of middle and northern Europe; in the southern countries it is seldom cultivated."§

1949. Rye-bread is heavy, dark-coloured, and sweet; but, when allowed to ferment, becomes sour. In Russia, 100 lbs. of rye flour, containing 16 per cent of water, yield from 150 lbs. to 160 lbs. of bread. There, horses get it on a journey, in lieu of corn.

1950. Beans.-Beans belong to a very different tribe of plants to what we have been considering. They belong to the natural order Leguminosa of Jussieu, because they bear their fruit in legumes or pods; and in the Linnæan system they occupy the class and order Diadelphia decandria. In Lindley's natural system they occupy the sub-class iii. Perigynous Exogens, alliance 42, Rosales, order 209, Fabiacea, and tribe 5, Phascolea. Their ordinary generic term is Faba vulgaris; formerly they were classed amongst the vetches, and called Vicia Faba. The common bean is divided into two classes, according to the mode of culture to which it is subjected, that is, the field or the garden. Those cultivated in the field are called Faba vulgaris arvensis, or, as Loudon calls them, Faba vulgaris equina, because they are cultivated chiefly for the use of horses, and are usually termed horsebeans. With the garden bean we have nothing to do, though some farmers attempt to raise a few varieties of them in the field, but I believe without success. All beans have butterfly or papilionaceous flowers. Mr Lawson has described 8 varieties of the field bean; and 10 varieties are placed in the Highland and Agricultural Society's Museum. The variety in common field-culture is thus well described by Mr Lawson: "In length the seed is from a half to five-eighths of an inch, by three-eighths in breadth, generally slightly or rather irregularly compressed and wrinkled on the sides, and frequently a little hollowed or flattened at the end; of a whitish or light brown colour, occasionally interspersed with darker blotches, particularly towards the extremities; colour of the eye black straw from 3 to 5 feet in length. There is perhaps," continues Mr Lawson, "no other grain over the shape and colour of which the climate, soil, and culture, exert so much influence as in the bean.

Fig. 189.

Thus, in a dry warm summer and harvest, the sample is always more plump and white in colour than in a wet and cold season; and these more so in a strong rich soil than in a light, and more so in a drilled crop than in one sown broadcast." 189 represents the horse-bean of its natural size.

THE HORSE-BEAN.

Fig.

¶ Lawson's Agriculturist's Manual, p. 62.

1951. "The leguminous order," observes Dr Lindley, beautifully, is not only among the most extensive that are known, but also are of the most important to man, whether we consider the beauty of the numerous species, which are among the gayest-coloured and most graceful plants of any region, or their applicability to a thousand useful purposes. The cercis, which renders the gardens of Turkey resplendent with its myriads of purple flowers; the acacia, not less valued for its airy foliage and elegant blossoms than for its hard and durable wood; the brazilletto, logwood, and rosewoods of commerce; the laburnum; the classical cytisus; the furze and the broom, both the pride of the otherwise dreary heaths of Europe; the bean, the pea, the vetch, the clover, the trefoil, the lucerne, all staple articles of culture by the farmer, are so many leguminous species. The gums, Arabic and Senegal, kino, senna, tragacanth, and various other drugs, not to mention indigo, the most useful of all dyes, are products of other species; and these may be taken as a general indication of the purposes to which leguminous plants may be applied. There is this, however, to be borne in mind, in regarding the qualities of the order in a general point of view-viz., that, upon the whole, it must be considered poisonous, and that those species which are used for food by man and animals are exceptions to the general rule; the deleterious juices of the order not being in such instances sufficiently concentrated to prove injurious, and being in fact replaced, to a considerable extent, by either sugar or starch.” *

1952. The produce of the bean crop varies from 20 to 40 bushels per imperial acre, the prolificacy of the crop palpably depending on the nature of the season. The average weight may be stated at 66 lbs. per bushel. It only requires 5 beans to weigh 1 drachm, so that a bushel only contains 42,240 grains of beans. I have not cultivated the bean so much as to enable me to ascertain the weight of a good crop of straw or haulm, in comparison with that of the grain, for it is seldom that the same season gives the largest return of both; but I have seen it stated, that "it has been known to yield 2 tons per acre."+ A crop of 40 bushels, at 66 lbs. per bushel, gives 1 ton 3 cwts. 64 lbs. per acre.

1953. Beans are given to the horse, whole, boiled, raw, or bruised. They are given to cattle in the state of meal-that is, the husk and grain ground, not very finely, overhead. Beans, however, can be ground into fine flour; and in this state is used to adulterate the flour of wheat. Its presence is easily detected by the peculiar smell arising from the flour when warm water is added to it. Beans impart essential service to horses having fatiguing work. "If beans do not afford more nutriment," observes Stewart, "weight for weight, than oats, they at least produce more lasting vigour. To use a common expression, they keep the stomach longer. The horse can travel farther; he is not so soon * Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom, p. 546-7. Stewart's Stable Economy, p. 205-6.

beans are almost indispensable to horses that have to run long stages. They afford a stronger and more permanent stimulus than oats alone, however good. Washy horses-those of slender carcasscannot perform severe work without a liberal allowance of beans; and old horses need them more than the young. The quantity varies from 3 to 6 lbs. per day; but in some of the coaching stables the horses get more, 1 lb. of oats being deducted for every 1 lb. of beans. Cart-horses are often fed on beans, to the exclusion of all other corn, but they are always given with dry bran—which is necessary to keep the bowels open, and to insure mastication-and for old horses they should be always broken." "There are several varieties of the bean in use as horsecorn; but I do not know that one is better than another. The small plump bean is preferred to the large shrivelled kind. Whichever be used, the bean should be old, sweet, and sound; not mouldy, nor eaten by insects. New beans are indigestible and flatulent; they produce colic, and founder very readily. They should be at least a year old." All kinds are constipating.

1954. According to Einhoff, the field bean is composed of

"Vaquelin could detect no sugar in it. He and Cornea de Serra found, in the skins of the bean, tannin striking a blue with the persalts of iron, animo-vegetable matter mixed with tannin, insoluble in water, but soluble in potash. The cotyledons contained a sweet-tasted substance, starch, legumen, albumen, an uncombined acid, with carbonate of potash, phosphates of lime, magnesia, and iron. The germen of the bean contained white tallow, legumen, albumen, phosphate of lime, and iron."§ The legumen of the bean is analogous in substance to the gluten of the wheat.

1955. The composition of the ash of the bean I have already given in (1300,) and the nutritious matter in an acre of beans in (1298.)

the very sight unclean. But the bean was not every where thus contemned, for Columella notices them in his time as food for peasants, and for them only

"And herbs they mix with beans for vulgar fare." "The Roman husbandmen had a religious ceremony respecting beans somewhat remarkable : When they sowed corn of any kind, they took care to bring some beans from the field for good luck's sake, superstitiously thinking that by such means their corn would return home again to them. The Romans carried their superstition still farther, for they thought that beans, mixed with goods offered for sale at the ports, would infallibly bring good luck to the seller." They used beans, however, more rationally, when they were employed "in gathering the votes of the people, and for electing the magistrates. white bean signified absolution, and a black one condemnation. From this practice, we imagine, was derived the plan of black-balling obnoxious persons.' It would appear, from what Mr Dickson states, that the faba of the Romans-a name, by the way, said to be derived from Haba, a town of Etruria, where the bean was cultivated-is the same as the small bean of our fields.+

A

1958. Pease. The pea occupies a similar position, in both the natural and artificial systems of botany, as the bean. The plant is cultivated both in the field and in the garden, and in the latter place to great extent and variety. The natural distinction betwixt the field and garden pea is founded in the flower, the field-pea always having a red-coloured, and the garden almost always a white one; at least the exceptions to this mark of distinction are few. The botanical name of the pea is Pisum sativum, the cultivated pea; and those varieties cultivated in the field are called in addition arvense, and those in the garden hortense. The name is said to have been given to it by the Greeks, from a town called Pisa, in Elis, in the neighbourhood of which this pulse was cultivated to great extent: Mr Paxton derives the name from the Celtic word pis, the pea, whence the Latin pisum. Mr Lawson has described 9 varieties of the field pea; and the Highland and Agricultural Society's Museum contains 14 varieties. § Of these a late and an early variety are cultivated: the late kind, called the common gray field-pea, or cold-seed, is suited for strong land in low situations; and the early, the partridge, gray maple, or Marlborough pea, adapted to light soils and late situations, is superseding the old gray Hastings, or hot-seed pea. The gray pea is described as having "its pod semi-cylindrical, long, and well filled, often containing from 6 to 8 peas. The ripened straw indicates 3 varieties-one spotted with a bluish green ground, one light blue, and one bluish

1963. The pea was formerly much cultivated in this country in the field, and even used as food, both in broth and in bread, pease bannocks having been a favourite food of the labouring class; but, since the extended culture of the potato, its general use has greatly diminished. It is now chiefly given to horses, and also split for domestic purposes, such as making pea-soup,-a favourite dish with families in winter. Its flour is used to adulterate that of the wheat, and is easily detected by the peculiar smell which it gives out with hot water. Pease-meal in brose is administered in some cases of dyspepsia. Pea-pudding is eaten as an excellent accompaniment to pickled pork. Pea and barley bread is eaten on the Borders by the peasantry. It

§ Catalogue of the Museum, p. 68.