HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 423 



society. Mr. Cobbett published an account of this circumstance 

 in his " Cottage Economy," and also an account of his own 

 experience in selecting the best grasses for the purpose, and of 

 bleaching the green culms or straw, and for which Mr. Cobbett 

 received the society's medal. 



The lady of the Rev. Mr. Morrice, of Great Brickhill, Bucks, 

 manufactured a very beautiful straw bonnet, in imitation of 

 Leghorn, of the culms of the crested dog's-tail grass {Cynosurus 

 cristatus), which, being submitted to the Society of Arts, obtained 

 the society's medal. Very great merit was displayed in the manu- 

 facture of this bonnet. 



Mrs. Grant, of Leighton Buzzard, has made very successful 

 trials with the bleaching and selecting of the straws of the peren- 

 nial grasses for the Leghorn plait, and, from Mr. Grant's exten- 

 sive knowledge of the British grasses, much assistance may be 

 expected from his patriotic exertions. 



The Duke and Duchess of Bedford, being desirous of intro- 

 ducing the manufacture of this kind of straw-plait among the 

 children of the labouring classes at Woburn, and in furtherance 

 of the intention of His Grace to establish here a girls' school for 

 the purpose, combining therewith, at the same time, the means of 

 moral and religious instruction to the children, I was instructed 

 to proceed in the cultivation of such grasses as were most likely 

 to supply the best culms or straw for the purpose. The wheat 

 recommended by Mr. Cobbett, and which was said to be the same 

 as that cultivated in Italy for the celebrated Leghorn plait, and 

 which was also said to have been imported from thence, was sown 

 on a siliceous soil, rather poor and exhausted, on the 27th of May. 

 Five different varieties of oats were sown at the same time, and 

 also a considerable number of the different species of perennial 

 grasses, on a separate space of ground. 



The wheat was sown on two distinct spaces of ground, at the 

 rate often and of fifteen bushels to the acre respectively; and each 

 of these spaces was again divided as to the mode of culture, one 

 half of each respectively being sown in drills, and the other half 

 broad-cast. The oats were treated in like manner. When the 

 wheat came into blossom, it proved to be the common bearded 

 spring or cape wheat, which in this climate is very subject to the 

 rust disease, or rubigo ; and its power to supply clean or bright 

 straw is therefore rendered very uncertain, even should a mode of 

 culture be found out, under the circumstances of a British climate. 



