ON SOME UNTRIED EXPERIMENTS 



plants, along with wheat, oats, rye, corn, and rice, 

 it is evident that the grasses should be second to 

 no other form of vegetation in their interest for 

 the plant developer. 



Nor will the plants themselves be found to lack 

 interest when once their acquaintance is made in 

 the right way. 



They vary in size from tiny sprigs of vegetation 

 to the giant pampas grasses, and to bamboos two 

 hundred feet in height and six inches in diameter. 

 We have already seen that their products com- 

 prise nof merely universal food and forage for 

 domestic animals, and grains of inestimable value, 

 but juices (in the case of cane and sorghum) that 

 are second in importance only to the grains 

 themselves. 



We saw too that there are minor products, such 

 as the panicle of the broom-corn, that have no 

 small measure of usefulness. And it is known to 

 everyone that the stalks and straws of the various 

 grasses have a wide range of utility in the manu- 

 facture of numerous articles of everyday use, 

 including the mats beneath our feet and the hats 

 on our heads, as well as the food from the tubers 

 of the nut grass. 



Whereas it cannot be said that a family of 

 plants that is thus comprehensively in the service 

 of man — having had, indeed, a most important 



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