Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1909-11-03
Grow Winter Oats.

Spring oats in the South are usual
ly worthless and light, but even for
spring sowing l would use the South
ern winter varieties rather than the
Northern spring oats, since they are
harder and keep better weight.
I have used the Virginia Gray Turf
oats and the Texas Rust-Proof, but
have had no experience with the Burt
nor the Appler, which have become
popular of late years. The chief dan
ger in getting the Texas oats is, that
if the seed comes from Texas, you
are apt to get Johnson grass seed with
it, and while Johnson grass is GER
tainly an excellent hay grass, its ag-
g~ressiveness should keep it out of
sections where it is not now common.
The common fault in the South is
too late sowing of oats, so that they
are neither winter nor spring. The
best success is usually had from early
September sowing. orsO October in the
far South. The soil should have the
same careful preparation and filming
and ~compacting Of the surface that
wheat demands, for if oats are sown
in very freshly prepared and loose
soil they will winter kill worse than
if the soil had been we'll compacted
by narrowing and tramping before
sowing. Any OF the wheat drills will
sow oats il they are made very clean,
but if not, they will choke with short
straw, etc. Never SOW less than two
bushels per acre, and if sowing in
spring, SOW two and a half bushels
per acre. If sown in carly fall the
plants will tiller out and thicRen, but
they will do little of this in spring.
In regard to the practice of sowing
in open burrows, I can say nothing,
as I have never tried it But there
is no reason whya good crop of win
ter oats should not be grown any
where from Central Virginia south
if the land is put in the best condi-
ton. II sown after a corn crop /
would, after cutting and shocking the
corn, merely disk the land about
three inches deep, but would go over
and over it with a drag harrow after
the disk till perfectly fine. If treated
in this way and tramped and har-
rowed till the surface is fine there
will be little-winteT killing if the seed
are sown with a hoe drill that will
put them in about three inches and
leave burrows to feed in to them.
Sow clean seed. If you find cheat
in the crop in the spring, it will be
because you sow cheat seed in the
fall. rhe cheat seed looks like a
shrivelled oat, and with a good fan
they can be blown out, as they are
lighter than oats. But set it, down as
a fact That if you SOW clean oats and
there is 40 cheat seedEi in your soil,
you will never have any cheat in the
crop, for no cheat ever grew from
an oat seed, but always from its own
seed and no other. Hence the i'm
portance of getting perfectly clean
seed.
If your corr was grown on a sod
that had manure spread on it as it
should be, you will need only acid
phosphate on red land and acid .phos-
plate and potash on gray or sandy
soil. Say 500 pounds of acid phos-
plate and twenty-five pounds Of muri-
ate of Potash per acre.
Where a a farms with a good
rotation OF corn. oats and cotton, with
crimson clover and peas thrown in at
every chance, there is no reason why
any farmer in the South should not
get his land up to the making of sixty
to seventv-five bushels Of oats per
acre, and find them a very profitable
crop.-Professor Massey.