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 Egyptian oat is cultivated south of Tennessee, which after being sown in autumn, and fed off by stock in winter and spring, yields from ten to twenty bushels per acre.  In the manufacture of malt and spirituous liquors oats enter but lightly, and their consumption for this purpose does not exceed 60,000 bushels annually in the United States.

In 1840, Ireland exported 2,037,835 quarters of oats and oatmeal, but in 1846, on account of the dearth, the grain exports fell off completely.  Most of the grain grown in Ireland requires to be kiln-dried, and is, therefore, of lower value.

The oat, like rye, never has entered much into our foreign commerce, as the domestic consumption has always been nearly equal to the quantity produced.  The annual average exports from the United States for several years preceding 1817, were 70,000 bushels.

By the census returns of 1840, the total produce of the United States was 123,071,341 bushels; of 1850, 146,678,879 bushels.

In Prussia 43 million hectolitres of oats are annually raised.

The quantity of oats imported into the United Kingdom, has been declining within the last few years.  In 1849, we imported 1,267,106 quarters; in 1850, 1,154,473; in 1851, 1,209,844; in 1852, 995,479.  In 1844, 221,105 bushels of oats were raised in Van Diemen’s Land on 13,864 acres.

RYE.

Rye (Secale cereale) is scarcely at all raised in this country for bread, except in Durham and Northumberland, where, however, it is usually mixed with wheat, and forms what is called “maslin,”—­a bread corn in considerable use in the north of Europe.

Geographically rye and barley associate with one another, and grow upon soils the most analogous, and in situations alike exposed.  It is cultivated for bread in Northern Asia, and all over the Continent of Europe, particularly in Russia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Holland; in the latter of which it is much employed in the manufacture of gin.  It is also grown to some extent in England, Scotland and Wales.  With us it is little used as an article of food compared with wheat and oats, though in the north of Europe and in Flanders it forms the principal article of human subsistence, but generally mixed with wheat, and sometimes, also with barley; 100 parts of the grain consist of 65.6 of meal, 24.2 of husk, and 10.2 of water.  The quantity of rye we import seldom reaches 100,000 quarters per annum.

The straw is solid, and the internal part, being, filled with pith, is highly esteemed for Dunstable work, for thatching and litter, and it is also used to stuff horse collars.