152 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
great soldiers have sometimes done in a single 
battle, for they are determining boundary lines. 
Most grasses have a strong rootstock, often 
called a root—really an underground stem. It 
creeps horizontally beneath the surface of the soil, 
sending fibrous roots downward and leaves and 
stems upward. It survives severe winters and 
parching droughts, and young blades grow up 
from it in spring, or on the réturn of rainy 
weather. 
To this family habit we owe, in great measure, 
the beauty of the fields and the life of grazing 
animals, for if all grasses grew from seed each 
year cattle would soon exterminate the very sorts 
which they like best. 
And the subterranean rootstocks of grasses are 
extremely useful as soil and sand-binders for wave- 
beaten and wind-swept regions. 
All down the sandy ocean coasts a war is 
waged, unceasingly, between the sea and the land. 
The robber-waves, like an attacking army, seem 
forever trying to overwhelm or to carry off the 
land. The land tries to withstand and _ repe! 
them. 
Each of the principal combatants has formed an 
alliance. The waves are helped by the wind, 
