66 BRITISH GRASSES. 



ing to the strength of the fibre and the presence or ab- 

 sence of the hard joints ; the joints require thrice the 

 time of boiling that the rest of the stem requires. The 

 straw of wheat requires the smallest amount of boiling. 

 It is very difficult and tedious to bleach straw paper, and 

 the paper made partly of straw is seldom of so fair a 

 whiteness as that made of rags entirely. Reeds make 

 good paper, and bleach more easily than straw. Straw 

 is a much cheaper material than rags, the same quantity 

 costing £2 which of rags w r ould cost £17; but a far 

 greater amount of waste occurs in preparing the straw 

 for manufacture than in preparing the rags, and this 

 added to the extra labour required in boiling and bleach- 

 ing, almost equalizes the cost. Straw pulp forms a very 

 good auxiliary to rag pulp when mixed in the proportion 

 of from half to three-quarters. A good, thick, coarse 

 brown-paper is successfully prepared from straw alone, 

 but the so-called " straw-papers " contain a considerable 

 admixture of rags. Perhaps the very best use of straw 

 in this manufacture is to impart stiffness to common 

 newspaper. 



An equally if not more extensive use of the stems of 

 grasses, is in basket and straw-plait work. 



In the Museum before mentioned, we find a large va- 

 riety of grasses used for this purpose. There are good 

 coarse baskets and slippers made of the Arundo Donax 

 and Ammophila arundinacea, and we understand that 

 the Welsh make mats for their houses of the latter 

 species, in daring defiance of the Act of Parliament. The 

 careful and industrious student and cultivator of grasses, 

 Sinclair, has taken great pains to bring several English 

 grasses into vogue for straw-plait. He cites the example 

 of an American lady who made a beautiful straw bonnet 



