1959. Straw coverings are formed of straight long wheat or rye straw, tied in handfuls in the middle (so that each handful may be nearly of the length of two straws), and the handfuls connected together by packthread. They are thus formed into rolls, and were formerly much used, especially in the culture of early salading, and in covering glass-cases. Melons were formerly protected by nothing more than loose wheat-straw, and this mode by rolls seems merely a more economical and neat mode of practice. Loose wheat-straw is used by the market-gardeners, to protect early crops of radishes and other saladings. A very simple mode of protecting the blossoms of fruit trees against walls is in use both in France and Germany. Small handfuls of straw, averaging not more than two or three dozens of straws each, are tied together at one end, and, being connected by a string (fig. 539.), are suspended in front of the trees at such distances from each other as to form a slight covering to the entire tree when in blossom.
