coarse and hard. Cattle pass them by in disgust. Yet they are the most
useful plants on the shore. They can live and spread where other plants
die. They have very long underground stems, which go through and through
the dry, loose sand. The wind does its best to bury them in sand, but
they send up hard, sharp buds, and go on living, and spreading.

Bit by bit, the sand is held together by the matted stems of these
grasses. It becomes firm, instead of loose; the wind can no longer blow
it about. Then other plants can grow in that place. You know how men go
out to the wild parts of the earth and, by hard work, make those places
ready for others to settle there. Well, the sand-grass works like that.
It prepares the way for useful plants to grow in places where they could
not grow before.

Quite near to the sea we shall find a very strange little plant. It has
no leaves, only fleshy, jointed stems. It is known as the Glass-wort,
being full of a substance useful in making glass. It belongs to a family
which seems to delight in deserts and salty soil! They have all sorts of
dodges to help them live in such places. For instance, their leaves are
fleshy. Squeeze them, and they are like wet, juicy fruit.

The Sea Beet is also a member of this family. The Red Beet, as well as
the Mangel-wurzel, we owe to this humble seaside plant. Most of our
sugar comes from the Sugar-beet.

Another useful plant is the Sea Cabbage, which grows on some parts of
our sea coast. It is rather a ragged, tough kind of Cabbage, and perhaps
you would not choose it for your dinner-table. We have more tempting
sorts in our gardens--Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, Cauliflower, but long,
long ago the wild seaside cabbage was the only one growing. Men found it