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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