  We report on simple shaking experiments to measure the compaction of a column
of Firth oat grain. Such grains are elongated anisotropic particles with a
bimodal polydispersity. In these experiments, the particle configurations start
from an initially disordered, low-packing-fraction state and under vertical
shaking evolve to a dense state with evidence of nematic-like structure at the
surface of the confining tube. This is accompanied by an increase in the
packing fraction of the grain.
