Misplaced bracket - - BTW, I dislike the way most MEL coders position their brackets . . . . This is how I do it . .

global proc generateGrass() {
//Creation of Poly Cone
string $blades[] = `polyCone -r .04 -h 1 -sx 3 -sy 10 -sz 0 -ax 0 1 0 -tx 1 -ch 0`;

//bring the bottom of the cone to groundlevel
setAttr ($blades[0] + ".translateY") 0.5 ;

// harden the edges of cone
polySoftEdge
-angle 30
-constructionHistory off
( $blades[0] + ".e[0:59]" );
}