Cattails Against The Cold

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The free stuffin' . . . right from the stalk.

Next, the down must be stripped from the heads. This can be done either in an outdoor, sheltered location, or-better yet -indoors.

If you decide to de-fluff your cattails in the house, spread out some newspapers before you begin work so you won't create a "carpet" of blownout seeds. Then just take hold of each spike by the base of its stem and pull gently. The fuzz will unwind from the core, and each mature head will yield about a double-handful of the fluffy material. You'll need to strip only around a dozen good-sized cattails to gather sufficient down for a vest. (Naturally, the larger the item, the more plants you'll have to collect.)

After the furry seeds have been freed from their "cobs" (and the cores and stems discarded), you'll have a bagful of clean, downy fleece. While most commercial manufacturers who once used cattail down employed machines to beat out the small seeds, the little propagators are so tiny that their removal really isn't necessary. (Three hundred thousand seedsenough to plant six acresweigh only one-third of an ounce!)

Just work the material with your hands (while it's inside the sack, to avoid scattering your down) until it's loose and fluffy, and no lumps remain. It can then be stuffed into cushions, clothing, or whatever you like.

A FUTURE CROP?

Cattails, in addition to their insulating qualities and their potential for feeding a hungry world with food grown on marginal land, can provide raw material for many products (including alcohol fuel, adhesives, and fibers . . . to name just a few). It's surprising to me that the plants aren't being investigated more thoroughly.

Perhaps someday farmers will produce more of the useful aquatic plants . . . instead of draining marshes (and thereby destroying valuable wildlife refuges). A portion of our future, in other words, may lie not in the chemist's laboratory, but in Mother Nature's swamps..

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