Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry stalks of cereal plants, after the grain and chaff have been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has many uses, including fuel, livestock bedding and fodder, thatching and basket-making. It is usually gathered and stored in a straw bale, which is a bundle of straw tightly bound with twine or wire. Bales may be square, rectangular, or round, depending on the type of baler used.
Read more about Straw: Uses
Famous quotes containing the word straw:
“And then finally there’s your grandmother
Sweeping the dust of the nineteenth century
Into the twentieth, and your grandfather plucking
A straw out of the broom to pick his teeth.”
—Charles Simic (b. 1938)
“Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Place sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.”
—O. Henry [William Sydney Porter] (1862–1910)