HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBU RN E N SIS. 289 



Mrs. Grant, of Leighton Buzzard, has made very success- 

 ful trials with the bleachino- and selecting; of the straws of 

 the perennial grasses for the Leghorn plait, and, from 

 Mr. Grant's extensive knowledge of the British grasses, 

 much assistance may be expected from his patriotic exer- 

 tions. 



The Duke and Duchess of Bedford, being desirous of 

 introducing 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 differ- 

 ent species of perennial grasses, on a separate space of 

 ground. 



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

 the rate of ten and of fifteen bushels to the acre respec- 

 tively ; 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, that would afford culms or straw of this grain 

 sufficiently fine, and at the same time of a texture suffici- 

 ently tough and firm for the Leghorn plait ; but experience 

 will prove, that these last-mentioned properties are not to 

 be obtained here by this plant. 



