GRASSES 



only a luxury in their houses; by and by the Indians also 

 will disappear from their log houses and villages and be 

 known only as a people that were but are not. I am not 

 aware of any other edible grain that is indigenous to Canada. 

 The Foxtail, Setaria viridis (Beauv.), indeed, has hard 

 seeds, but it is utilized only in some places, where it abounds 

 to the farmer's great disgust, as food for his hogs and fowls. 



The marsh-growing Redtop or Herd Grass, Agrostis vul- 

 garis (With.), is used as hay. We have many other wild, 

 coarse grasses also that are harvested, and the prairies 

 abound with nutritious plants of this order which are a 

 great resource for the support of the cattle during all 

 seasons. What would become of the settler's beasts in the 

 North-west provinces but for the prairie hay? Very beauti- 

 ful varieties of the lovely prairie grasses have been gathered 

 by kind friends and sent to me from this " Wild North 

 Land." 



One, the cruel Arrow Grass, Stipa spartea (Trin.), is a 

 great nuisance to the settler, the barbed shaft, with curi- 

 ously twisted awns, piercing hands and feet or insinuating 

 its hard points into the flesh or clothing. The long, 

 twisted arrows of this grass have a curious fashion of wind- 

 ing themselves together, forming a sort of hard rope; the 

 barbed seed lies below, attached to these twisted arrows. 

 There is also on the prairies a wild grass known by the 

 descriptive name of Porcupine Grass; possibly the Arrow 

 Grass may be the same plant with another name. But 

 turning from this uninviting Prairie Pest, as the settlers 

 call it, I would call attention to the useful and sweet-scented 

 Indian Grass, which supplies the poor Indian woman with 

 the material which she weaves into such lovely, tasteful, 

 ornamental baskets, now almost her only resource for 

 materials for her basket-work, by which industry she can 

 earn a small addition to her scanty means of obtaining food 



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