Straw

“ Straw′-embroi′dery, embroidery done by sewing straw on net; Straw′-house, a house for holding thrashed straw; Straw′ing (slang) , the sale of straws on the streets in order to cover the giving to the purchaser of things forbidden to be sold, as indecent books, &c.; Straw′-plait, a narrow band of plaited wheat-straw, used in making straw hats, bonnets, &c.; Straw′-stem, the fine stem of a wine-glass pulled out from the material of the bowl, instead of being attached separately: a wine-glass having such a stem.—adj. Straw′y, made of, or like, straw.—Man of straw (see under Man) . ”

“ Hereabouts you would often see a whole family lying upon a filthy pallet of straw, and so huddled together for warmth that it had the appearance of some fearsome animal which had crawled from the darkness to the light. ”

“ The straw is in this way crushed into pieces some two or three inches long. When the whole heap has been gone over, the farmer waits for a windy day; when it comes, he tosses the heap in forkfuls in the air. ”

“ And, therefore, the name of “Dunstable,” another of the now world-known local names, was given to the plait, hats and bonnets which emanated from the whole vicinity.
The great preponderance of coarse straws, combined with the increasing demands for hats made of fine plaits, caused straw workers to endeavour to make the straws smaller by splitting the “pipes” (as the whole straw is called) into narrower portions called “splints.” ”

“ But Nature does few things directly. A minute later yet, an ignited fragment fell upon the straw covering of a long thatched heap or 'grave' of mangel-wurzel, lying in a direction at right angles to the house, and down toward the hedge. ”

“ In some most remote northern parts of England the farmer lights a wisp of straw, which he carries round his fields to protect them from the tare and darnel, the devil and witches. In some places they used to cover a wheel with straw, set it on fire, and roll it down a hill. ”

“ The question of penetration of the straw is one that has keenly exercised the minds of straw dyers from the inception of the industry. Many are the opinions as to the best medium for rapid and regular penetration. ”

“ If a crow in carrying a straw to build its nest holds it in the middle, they think that the rains will be normal and adequate; but if the straw is held towards one end, that the rains will be excessive or deficient. ”

“ Straw must serve for their beds till they could get some sacking to stuff it into, and as some of the sheep would have to be killed and salted for the winter, the skins would serve for warmth. Patience arranged the bundles of straw with a neat bit of plaiting round them, at one corner of the room for herself and Rusha, at the opposite one for Stead. For the present they must sleep in their clothes. ”

“ Many women put the straw into clear boiling water to which nothing has been added. After this process the straw is allowed to cool, is washed several times in clean, fresh water and is spread in the sun to dry, whereupon it assumes a gray color. ”

“ Sometimes the person who gives the last stroke with the flail is called the Old Woman, and is wrapt in the straw of the last sheaf, or has a bundle of straw fastened on his back. Whether wrapt in the straw or carrying it on his back, he is carted through the village amid general laughter. ”

“ Plaiting coarse straw or bulrushes is an employment that can be followed both by old people and young children; and you will find covers made of straw plaited into bands, and then sown together, of great service in protecting your half-hardy plants during frosty weather. Garden mats, baskets for flowers, and various other things, may be made in the same manner, and you will easily find out what will be most suitable to your protégées, and what they can do with least difficulty to themselves. ”

“ For some minutes the unhappy beings above thought that the straw, being damp, would not ignite so as to communicate with the wooden rafters of the floor which supported them, and hoped that they were free from danger ”

“ Scrub brushes are but a bunch of coarse straw tied around the top with a string, but they make the floors perfectly white. There is a fortune here awaiting some lively fellow who will bring machinery and make brooms and brushes for the natives; the straw costs comparatively nothing, and is of the very best quality. ”

“ Individual straws in the foreground were consumed in a creeping movement of ruddy heat, as if they were knots of red worms, and above shone imaginary fiery faces, tongues hanging from lips, glaring eyes, and other impish forms, from which at intervals sparks flew in clusters like birds from a nest. ”

“ Water is mixed with the earth till it becomes a thick mud, then it is stamped into the required shape by means of a wooden block, and then left in the sun to dry. Sometimes straw is mixed with the mud, when it is necessary to have very strong bricks. ”

“ Common wheat straw, when burnt, is found to contain a portion of flinty earth in the form of a most exquisite powder, and this accounts for the utility of burnt straw in giving the last polish to marble. ”

“ Over the top layer a thick bed of straw should be spread, which is to be covered with boards surmounted with heavy stones, to close up the interstices in the straw. The inner and outer doors should never be opened at once ”

“ Therefore a drink that worms normally grow in them, and similar situations, one does not filter it with wood slivers and straw, at night, lest they will return or fall inside the vessel, and one comes to drink them. ”

“ Some practise putting clean chopped straw in the bottom of a box or barrel, wetting it, and covering with heads trimmed ready for cooking, adding again wet straw and a layer of heads, so alternating until the barrel or box is filled, after which it is headed up and kept in a cool place, at, or a little below, the freezing point. ”

“ If you lime straws, it must be done likewise when the lime is very hot, doing a great qnantity together, as many as you can well grasp in your hand, tossing and working them before the fire till they are all besmeared, every straw having its due proportion of lime ”

“ In this difference we see, further, one reason why the same soil which may be favourable to the growth of straw may not be equally propitious to the growth of the ear. Wheat straw contains little either of potash or of soda; the ash of the grain contains a large proportion; while the ash of the oat-straw, on the other hand, contains a much larger proportion of potash than that of its own ear does. It is clear, therefore, that the roots may, in certain plants and in certain soils, succeed in fully nourishing the straw while they cannot fully ripen the ear ”

“ Hope would have her say, and buoyed me up, though ever so little, with the idea, incredible as it seemed, that this horrible underground river had doubled back beneath itself, and was making for the sea once more. It has well been said that drowning men will clutch at straws! ”

“ I knew I was catching at straws; but in the wide and weltering deep where I found myself, I would have caught at cobwebs. ”

“ A tremendous stream is flowing towards the ocean carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss. ”

“ An ample stream once held its winding course among them, but becoming choked at the further end with weeds and fallen leaves, and branches broken by the wind, it spread into a marsh, tenanted alike by the slow, creeping blind-worm, and water-newt, the black slug, and frogs of portentous size. ”

“ Miles to the right, miles to the left, miles away in any direction he might look, he could see, beyond whole sections of open water and flat acres of drift, the submerged woodlands of bottoms, the river banks two or three or four hundred feet high—so they looked—and great expanses of open water in which lone trees stood to mark places that on a hot summer day must offer grateful shade to cattle, or to grain reapers, or whoever came there when those bottoms were not covered with ten feet or so of water. ”

“ Down one of the tubes is sucked a stream of water which not only bathes the animal's gills, or breathing organs, but carries minute floating particles of food into its stomach, after which the waste water is forced out of the other tube.
Now you will understand what we shall see, and are ready for the answer to our question. You never find live clams crawling about the sand, because they live buried in the mud. ”

“ The clusters next the stream droop over till their graceful plumes touch the surface of the water, and, as the plants grow older, they droop lower, until the stream is filled with a yielding mesh of canes. ”

“ At our feet a stream was struggling with the multitude of rude rocks, which Nature, in one of her primeval convulsions, had flung here and there in masses into its current; sometimes uniting into irregular ledges, over which the water swept with impetuosity;—sometimes standing insulated in the stream, and increasing the energies of the river by their resistance;—sometimes breaking forward from the bank, and giving a bolder effect to its romantic outline. ”

“ Small slimy spots began to appear, which glittered steadily amidst the changeful shine of the water. These grew to broad patches of mud, which widened and spread, with rocks here and there, and floundering fishes and crawling eels swarming. ”

“ River-water is in general purer than spring-water; as the neutral salts washed down from the earth decompose each other, except perhaps the marine salt; and the earths, with which spring-water frequently abounds, is precipitated; yet it is not improbable, that the calcareous earth dissolved in the water of many springs may contribute to our nourishment, as the water from springs, which contain earth, is said to conduce to enrich those lands, which are flooded with it, more than river water. ”

“ But since water encompasses the earth, and man is not an aquatic, but a land-animal, living in the air, and requiring much light, Providence formed many eminences and cavities in the earth, so that these cavities should receive the whole or a great part of the water which covers the land beneath it; and that the eminences should rise and conceal the water beneath them, except so much as was necessary for the use of the human race, the animals and plants about it. ”

“ River shells such as the mussel, land shells such as those of snails, the bones of fishes and of such land animals as suffer drowning at times of flood or are mired in swampy places, logs of wood, and the stems and leaves of plants are examples of the variety of the remains of land and fresh-water organisms which are entombed in river deposits and sealed away as a record of the life of the time, and as proof that the deposits were laid by streams and not beneath the sea. ”

“ A part of the rain-water is there held, until it returns by evaporation, to the clouds, while a part slowly percolates downward, finding its way into swamps and springy plains, and finally, after days or weeks of wandering, slowly, but surely, finds its outlet in the stream or pond. ”

“ When the dam is finished, not a drop of water escapes; their work is always well done."
"Nurse, do not beavers, and otters, and musk rats feel cold while living in the water; and do they not get wet?"
"No, my dear; they do not feel cold, and cannot get wet, for the thick coating of hair and down keeps them warm, and these animals, like ducks and geese, and all kinds of water-fowls, are supplied with a bag of oil, with which they dress their coats, and that throws off the moisture; for you know, Lady Mary, that oil and water will not mix. ”

“ You want to undress and jump into the warm water. Under the trees it is cool and the mud is soft and slippery. And the curious insects that live at the bottom of the river whirl around and about before your eyes. And curious, long-legged flies slip and slide on the surface of the water. ”

“ I have observed, as I have sat by a spout of water, which descends from a stone trough about two feet into a stream below, at particular seasons of the year, a great number of little fish called minums, or pinks, throw themselves about twenty times their own length out of the water, expecting to get into the trough above. ”

“ Striveling that strait place, a strength of the land,
Why with Strabrock and Strathern strives thou to yarn,
When Strabogie shall destroy all the straiberries;
The strands of Strabrock shall stream them with blood,
Three storks in a stall shall stand them before,
Stuffed all is steel weed, all on horse-back. ”

“ Water arising by land-floods brings along with it much of the most soluble parts of the manure from the higher lands to the lower ones. River-water in its clear state and those springs which are called soft are less beneficial for the purpose of watering lands, as they contain less earthy or saline matter; and water from dissolving snow from its slow solution brings but little earth along with it, as may be seen by the comparative clearness of the water of snow-floods. ”

“ Sludge consists of a stratum of detached ice crystals, or of snow, or of the smaller fragments of brash-ice, floating on the surface of the sea.
A stream is an oblong collection of drift or bay-ice, the pieces of which are continuous. It is called a sea-stream when it is exposed on one side to the ocean, and affords shelter from the sea to whatever is within it. ”

“ They support very little life, as has been said. Behind them, however, are shallow bays and sounds, in which the water, though salt, is usually warm and still; mud gathers upon the sand, and eel-grass and other water-weeds grow in abundance. Here is excellent ground for naturalists, old or young, and in a single walk you can discover enough to surprise you greatly. We must go when the tide is low, and it will be a good idea to take our rubber boots, so that we may not be afraid of the wet mud. ”

“ The tide flows up the river many miles past the waterworks, carrying up with it the filth from the sewers. The supply of water was, to be sure, obtained when the tide was down, but as the banks of the river are clothed with sedges in many parts, and its bottom deep with mud, the water can never be free from sewage. ”