hed, in one place, the arctic tundra, but it was confidently
expected this excursion would soon cease. The high peaks of the Rockies
with the heavy winter snowdrifts lying between them promised no
permanent hospitality, and what seeds blew through the passes and
lighted on the Great Plains were generally isolated by saltbands, and
since they were confined to comparatively small clumps they were easily
wiped out by salt or fire. To all appearance the grass was satiated and
content to remain crouching over what it had won.

Only a minority argued that in its new form it might be infinitely
adaptable. Before, when stopped, it had produced seeds capable of
bearing the parent strain. So now, they argued, it would in time
acclimate itself to more rigorous temperatures. Among these pessimists,
Miss Francis, emerging from welldeserved obscurity, hysterically ranged
herself. She prophesied new sudden and sweeping advances and demanded
money and effort equal to that expended in the late war be turned to
combating the grass. As if taxes were not already outrageously high.

Those in authority, with a little judicious advice from persons of
standing, quite properly disregarded her querulous importunities. The
whole matter of dealing with the weed was by now in the hands of a
permanent body, the Federal Disruptions Commission. This group had spent
the first six months of its existence exactly defining and asserting its
jurisdiction, which seemed to spread just as the vegetation calling it
into being did; and the second six months wrangling with the Federal
Trade Commission over certain "Cease and Desist" orders issued to firms
using allusions to the grass on the labels of their products, thereby
implying they were as vigorous, or of as wide application, as the
representation. The Disruptions Commission had no objection in principle
to this castigation; they merely thought it should have come from their
regulatory hands.

But with the end of the war a new spirit animated the honorable members
of the commission and as a token of revived energy they issued a stern
directive that no two groups engaged in antigraminous research were to
pool their knowledge; for competition, the commission argued in the
sixtyseven page order, spurred enthusiasm and the rivalry between
workers would the sooner produce a solution. Having settled this
basically important issue they turned their attention to investigating
the slower progress of the grass to