Prolific Oat.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 147, 15 April 1909, Page 3

Prolific Oat.

There is growing on Garton's seed grounds at Warrrington, Lance., a single oat plant which is said to surpass by several hundred points any cereal ever produced in the world. The single head is reported to contain a few short of 1000 grains, ten times as many as you will find in the best crops. The plant is more or less accidental result of the original system of what may be callfd accelerated e\*olution, which has been practised on these grounds for the last 27 years. Thn particular prodigy has been obtained by crossing oats with wild oats, which has an incalculable capacity for bearing seeds. These are small and useless, but the strange fact has been discovered that the wild oat may. in crossing, even enlarge the grain of the cross, as well as increase its number. This particular oat is but an extreme instance of the new productions in cereals of all sorts. It is an indisputable fact, though farmers will have a difficulty in believing it, that on these grounds oat crops of 167 bushels to the acre that i-» twice the weight of a high average of present crops—have been reaped, without any artificial manure or any intensive cultivation.