64 GEAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY} 



tarred paper pegged down so that the wind cannot stir it. Two or 

 three months of such exclusion from air and sunlight will leave the 

 rootstocks withered and dead. 



Quack-grass rootstocks (not the rootlets) are much used in the 

 drug trade. At present this country imports from Europe about a 

 quarter-million pounds of it annually, at a cost of three to seven 

 cents a pound. Since no country grows more Quack-grass than the 

 United States, it would seem needless to go abroad for it. To pre- 

 pare the plant for market, the smooth, pale yellow rootstocks should 

 be gathered in the spring, carefully washed, and all the fine rootlets 

 and buds removed from the joints, after which the rootstocks may 

 be cut into short pieces on a feed cutter and thoroughly dried. 



WILD BARLEY 

 Hdrdeum jubatum, L. 



Other English names: Squirrel-tail, Flicker-tail, Skunk-tail, Tickle 



Grass. 



Native. Biennial or winter annual. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom. June to August. 

 Seed-time: July to September. 

 Range: Labrador to Alaska, southward as far as Maryland, Kansas, 



and California. Most troublesome in the West. 

 Habitat: Fields, meadows, pastures, and waste places. 



Because of its beauty this plant is sometimes used for orna- 

 mental purposes ; but it never should be, lest it spread to do injury 

 where it is not wanted. The long, barbed, reddish-golden awns 

 become very brittle when ripe, and break into small bits which 

 work between the teeth and into the jaws of animals that eat the 

 grass, causing such ulcerations and swellings as sometimes to be 

 mistaken for the disease called "Big Jaw" or "Lumpy Jaw" 

 (Actinomycosis) ; they get into the nostrils and into the eyes, some- 

 times causing blindness ; they also work into the tissues of the 

 throat and the alimentary canal, setting up an irritation which 

 may end in ulceration and death. The injury to horses, cattle, and 

 sheep from this cause is great, particularly in the West. (Fig. 32.) 



The grass grows in thick tufts from fibrous and clustered roots. 

 Culms ten to thirty inches tall, smooth, erect or sometimes decum- 

 bent at the lower joints. Sheaths shorter than the internodes; 



