OAT (O. Eng.

See also:

• ATE

ate; the word is not found in cognate

See also:

• LANGUAGES

languages; it may be allied with Fr. eitel,

See also:

• KNOT
• KNOT (O.E. cnotta, from a Teutonic stem knutt; cf. " knit," and Ger. knoten)

knot, nodule, cf. Gr. oiSos swelling)  , a cereal (Avena saliva) belonging to the tribe Avenece of the order Gramineae or grasses . The genus Avena contains about fifty species mostly dispersed through the temperate regions of the Old World . The spikelets form a loose panicle, familiar in the cultivated oat (fig . I), the flowering glume having its dorsal rib prolonged into an awn (fig . 2), which is in some species twisted and bent near the base . The origin of the cultivated oat is generally believed to be A. fatua, or " wild oat," or some similar species, of which several exist in southern Europe and western Asia . Professor J . Buckman succeeded in raising " the potato-oat type " and " the white Tatarian oat " from grain of this species . A. strigosa, Schreb, " the bristle-pointed oat," is the origin of the Scotch oat, according to Buckman . The white and black varieties of this species were cultivated in England and Scotland from remote times, and are still grown as a crop in Orkney and Shetland . A. strigosa is probably only a variety of the cultivated oat . The "naked oat," A. nuda, was found by Bunge in waste ground about Peking; it was identified by the botanist Lindley with the pilcorn of the old agriculture, and we see from Rogers 1 that it was in cultivation in England saliva .

(After Le Maout.) in the 13th

century . Both this and the " common otes," A. vesca, are described by Gerard.2 Parkinson tells us that in his time (early in the 17th century) the naked oat was sown in sundry places, but " nothing so frequent " as the common sort . The chief differences between A. fatua and A. saliva, are, that in the former the chaff-scales which adhere to the grain are thick and hairy, and in the latter they are not so coarse and are hairless . The wild oat, moreover, has a long stiff awn, usually twisted near the base . In the cultivated oat it may be wanting, and if present it is not so stiff and is seldom bent . The grain is very small and worthless in the one, but larger and full in the other . There are now many varieties of the cultivated oat included under two principal races—common oat or panicled oats with a spreading panicle, A. saliva proper, and Tatarian oats or banner oats which has sometimes been regarded as a distinct species, A. orientalis, with contracted one-sided panicles . With regard to the antiquity of the oat, A. de Candolle 3 observes that it was not cultivated by the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the ancient Greeks and the Romans . Central Europe appears to be the locality where it was cultivated earliest, at least in Europe, for grains have been found among Rarer Kinds of Grain, ii . 173 . 2 Herball, p . 68 (1597) .

2 Origin of Cultivated

Plants, p . 373 . FIG . 2.-Spikelet of Oat, A.the remains of the Swiss lake-dwellings perhaps not earlier than the bronze age, while Pliny alludes to bread made of it by the ancient Germans . Pickering also records Galen's observations (De Alim . Fac. i . 14), that it was abundant in Asia Minor, especially Mysia, where it was made into bread as Well as given to horses . Besides the use of the straw when cut up and mixed with other food for fodder, the oat grain constitutes an important food for both man and beast . The oat grain (excepting the naked oat), like that of barley, is closely invested by the husk . Oatmeal is made from the kiln-dried grain from which the husks have been removed; and the form of the food is the well-known " porridge." In Ireland, where it is sometimes mixed with Indian-corn meal, it is called " stirabout." Groats or grits are the whole kernel from which the husk is removed . Their use is for gruel, which used to be consumed as an ordinary drink in the 17th century at the coffee-houses in London . The meal can be baked into " cake " or biscuit, as the Passover cake of the Jews; but it cannot be made into loaves in consequence of the great difficulty in rupturing the starch grains, unless the temperature be raised to a considerable height .

With regard to the nutritive value of oatmeal, as compared with that of

wheat flour, it contains a higher percentage of albuminoids than any other grain, viz . 12.6—that of wheat being io•8—and less of starch, 58.4 as against 66.3 in wheat . It has rather more sugar, viz . 5.4—wheat having 4.2—and a good deal more fat, viz . 5.6, as against 2•o in flour . Lastly, salts amount to 3'0% in oat, but are only 1.7 in wheat . Its nutritive value, therefore, is higher than that of ordinary seconds flour .