00,000
Ireland 2,300,000 11,600,000
Scotland 1,300,000 6,500,000
--------- ---------
Total 6,100,000 30,500,000

We import annually about l1/4 million quarters from foreign countries
and nearly three-fourths of a million quarters from Ireland. The
average produce per acre throughout the kingdom is five quarters. The
price within the last 10 years has ranged from 28s. 7d. per quarter
(the famine year) to 17s. 6d.

The oat, when considered in connection with the artificial grasses,
and the nourishment and improvement it affords to live stock, may be
regarded as one of the most important crops produced. Its history is
highly interesting, from the circumstance that in many portions of
Europe it is formed into meal, and forms an important aliment for man;
one sort, at least, has been cultivated from the days of Pliny, on
account of its fitness as an article of diet for the sick. The country
of its origin is somewhat uncertain, though the most common variety is
said to be indigenous to the Island of Juan Fernandez. Another oat,
resembling the cultivated variety, is also found growing wild in
California.

This plant was introduced into the North American Colonies soon after
their settlement by the English. It was sown by Gosnold on the
Elizabeth Islands in 1602; cultivated in Newfoundland in 1622, and in
Virginia, by Berkley, prior to 1648.

The oat is a hardy grain, and is suited to climates too hot and too
cold either for wheat or rye. Indeed, its flexibility is so great,
that it is cultivated with success in Bengal as low as latitude
twenty-five degrees North, but refuses to yield profitable crops as we
approach the equator. It flourishes remarkably well, when due regard
is paid to the selection of varieties, throughout the inhabited parts
of Europe, the northern and central portions of Asia, Australia,
Southern and Northern Africa, the cultivated regions of nearly all
North America, and a large portion of South America.

In the United States the growth of the oat is confined principally to
the Middle, Western and Northern States. The varieties cultivated are
the common white, the black, the grey, the imperial, the Hopetown, the
Polish, the Egyptian, and the potato oat. The yield of the common
varieties varies from forty to ninety bushels and upwards per acre,
and weighing from twenty-five to fifty pounds to the bushel. The
Egypti