Straw

Straw

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.

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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)

    That when she essayed
    To drink lemonade,
    She slipped through the straw and fell in.
    —Unknown. There Was a Young Lady of Lynn (l. 3–5)

    But such is life, the silliest proverbs prove to be true, and when a man thinks, now it’s all right, it’s not all right by a long shot. Man proposes, God disposes, and there’s always that last straw to break the camel’s back.
    Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)