OATS.
This is one of the great staple agricultural products of all regions, sufficiently moist and cool for their successful growth. Oatmeal makes the most wholesome bread ever eaten by man. For all horses, except those having the heaves, oats are the best grain; to such horses they should never be fed—corn, soaked or ground, is best. They are valuable for all domestic animals and fowls.
Varieties.—These are numerous. Those called side-oats yield the largest crops: but of these there are several varieties. The genuine Siberian oats are tall, heavy, dark-colored side-oats, the most productive of any known. Swedish oats, and other new varieties, are coming into notice; most of these are the Siberian, under other names, and perhaps slightly modified by location and culture. The barley-oats, Scotch oats, and those usually cultivated, will yield only about two thirds as much per acre as the true Siberian; the same difference is apparent in the growth of straw. Oats will produce something on poor land, with bad tillage, but repay thorough fertilization and tillage as well as most other crops. Enrich the land, work it deep and thoroughly, and roll after harrowing. Moist, cool situations are much preferable for oats: hence, success in warm climates depends upon very early sowing. Oats sowed as late as the first of July, in latitude forty-two and further north, will mature; yet, all late oats, even with large straw and handsome heads, will be found to be only from one half to two thirds filled in proportion to the lateness of sowing. The entire profits of an oat-crop depend upon early sowing.
Harvest as soon as the grain begins to harden, and the straw to turn yellow. Allowed to get quite ripe, they shell badly, and the straw becomes useless, except for manure. Cut with reaper or cradle, and bind: all grain so cut is more easily handled, thrashed, and fed. Mow no grain that is not so lodged down that a cradle or reaper can not be used. The straw of oats cut quite green is nearly as good as hay.
OKRA.
A valuable garden plant, easily propagated by seeds. It is excellent in cookery, as a sauce. Its ripe seeds, used as coffee, very much resemble the genuine article. The green pods are much used in the West Indies, in soups and pickles. Plant at the usual time of corn-planting, in rows four feet apart, two or three seeds in a place, eight inches apart in the row; leave but one in a place after they get a few inches high, and hoe as peas, and the crop will be abundant.
OLIVES.
These are natives of Asia, but have, beyond date, been extensively cultivated in Southern Europe. Olive-oil is an important article of commerce in most countries. Its use in all kinds of cookery, in countries where it flourishes, renders olives as important, to the mass of the people, as cows are in New England. It should be a staple product of the Southern states, to which it is eminently adapted. It is hardy further north than the orange. With protection, it may be cultivated, with the orange and lemon, all over the country. Olive-trees attain a greater age than any other fruit-tree. An Italian olive-plantation, near Terni, is believed to have stood since the days of Pliny. Once set out, the trees require very little attention, and they flourish well on the most rocky lands, that are utterly useless for any other purpose. Calcareous soils are most favorable to their growth. They are propagated by suckers, seeds, or by little eggs that grow on the main stalk, and are easily detached by a knife, and planted as potatoes or corn. Olives will bear at four or five years from the seed; they bear with great regularity, and yield fifteen or twenty pounds of oil per annum to each tree. There are several varieties. Plantations now growing at the South are very promising.
ONIONS.
Of this well-known garden vegetable there are quite a number of varieties.