l64 NATURE STUDY. 



A Useful Family. IV. 



BY FREDERICK W. BATCHELDER. 



The grasses which are called cereals are of primary im- 

 portance to man, since they supply those seeds or grains of 

 which his daily bread is made. Second to these only in 

 value are the forage and pasture grasses, both wild and 

 cultivated, which furnish subsistence to the herbivorous 

 domestic animals. Yet these two, though the greatest, 

 are not by any means the only contributions of the grass 

 family to the well-being of man. 



While all the members of the family are botanically sim- 

 ilar there are enormous differences in size, aspect and habit 

 between them, differences we in the north can scarcely ap- 

 preciate until we have become acquainted with the grasses 

 of the tropics. There is one genus, Bambusa, bamboo, of 

 which the plants in several species attain tree-like dimen- 

 sions. 



They actually form forests of somewhat palm-like trees 

 forty to eighty feet high, or even higher. A. R. Wallace, 

 in his work on the Malay Archipelago, pronounces the bam- 

 boo to be " one of the most wonderful and most beautiful 

 productions of the tropics, and one of Nature's most valua- 

 ble gifts to uncivilized man." The uses to which this 

 giant grass can be put are practically numberless. It 

 serves the natives in some way or another at every stage 

 of growth and in every part. The young shoots are served 

 like asparagus, and are also eaten salted or pickled or can- 

 died. Joints of the stem are made useful as water buckets 

 and bottles and drinking cups, or even as cooking vessels. 

 When a native wishes to build a house, he may, if he choos- 

 es, make it entirely of bamboo. Large stems are used as 

 posts, smaller ones as rafters, still smaller ones as lattice 

 work for the walls and as thatch for the roof. The house 



