ESPARTO, or Spanish Grass, Macrochloa {Siipa, L.) tenacissima, Kun th, is a plant of the tribe Stipe oe, resembling the ornamental feather-grass of gardens. It is indigenous to the south of Spain and the north of Africa, and is especially abundant in the sterile and rugged parts of Murcia and Valencia, and in Algeria, flourishing best in sandy, ferruginous soils, in dry, sunny situations on the sea coast. Pliny (A r . II. xix. 2) described what appears to have been the same plant under the name of spαrtιιm, whence the designation campus sptartarius for the region surrounding New Carthage. (See Cartagena, vol. v. p. 140.) It attains a height of three or four feet. The stems are cylindrical, and clothed with short hair, and grow in clusters of from two to ten feet in circumference; when young they serve as food for cattle, but after a few years’ growth acquire great toughness cf texture. The leaves vary from six inches to three feet in length, and are greygreen in colour; on account of their tenacity of fibre and flexibility they have for centuries been employed for the making of ropes, sandals, baskets, mats, and other articles. Ships’ cables of esparto, being light, have the quality of floating on water, and have long been in use in the Spanish navy. Esparto leaves contain 56 per cent, by weight of fibre, or about 10 per cent, more than straw, and hence have come largely into requisition as a substitute for linen rags in the manufacture of paper. For this purpose they were first utilized by the French, and in 1857 were introduced into Great Britain. In 1877 the total imports of esparto into the United Kingdom were 174,720 tons, being 43,809 tons in excess of the quantity imported in the previous year. When required for paper-making the leaves should be gathered ...