Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1870 — What Is Thought of the Surprise Oats at the East. [ARTICLE]

What Is Thought of the Surprise Oats at the East.

Myron F. Gowdy, of Somerville, Conn., writes as follows to the New Ragland Homestead: Three years ago a friendof mine in Chicago sent me direct from Mr. C. H. Van Olinda, the originator, a little hag containing one pint of Surprise Oats, accompanied by a circular setting forth their superiority over the common oats, which was that they would yield more, ripen earlier, and were heavier than any other known variety. He claimed that they would yield 133 bushels per acre; would weigh 45 pounds to the bushel, and ripen three weeks sooner than common oats. At first I thought it all humbug, or that the statement ■wax'immensdy exaggerated, but soon I put aside my prejudice and exercised my reason like a sensible man. 1 here had a sample of oats that I knew were vastly superior to any other that I ever saw, but with ine the question was, can such oats be grown on common soil without special effort; nothing short of a fair trial would solve the question to my satisfaction. I sowed them upon about one square rod of ground, giving the soil the same preparation as for the common variety, and sowed them at about the same time. On the Bth of July I harvested one-half bushel that weighed twenty pounds. The next year, 1868, the oat crop was very light,—common oats would weigh scarcely twenty-five pounds per bushel. The Surprise Oats weighed thirty-nine. Last year, the yield of this variety was exceedingly abundant, the weight forty-one pounds per bushel. Compared with common oats, the soil and culture being the same, they will yield three bushels to their two, and will weigh fully one-third more, thus giving twice the number of pounds per acre. I hatta never sown them on land exceedingly fertile for the purpose of securing an enormous yield, to use the account of which as an advertisement. My object has been to see if they were a superipr variety for practical culture. On soil that Is capable of producing thirty bushels of corn per acre with a good handful of ashes in the hill, these oats will yield from fifty to sixty bushels per acre, without the aid of any manure •r fertilizer whatever. They are a white oat, exceedingly plump and large and very early, an important consideration, as they are less liable to be injured by storms and less likely to rust. In these respects I consider them greatly superior to the

Norway, which ripen about a week later than the common oats, I believe. lam fully satisfied that the Surprise Oats are not all a humbug, nor am I alone in this opinion, as I am supplying seed to my neighbors at the rate of $5.00 per measured bushel, warranted to weigh forty-one pounds.