126 ENGLISH STRAW PLAT. [No. 



next month of June came, I went into the country 

 for the purpose. I made my experiments, and, in 

 short, I proved to demonstration, that we had not 

 only the plants, but the sun also, necessary for the 

 making of straw, yielding in no respect to that of 

 America or of Italy. I think that, upon the whole, 

 we have greatly the advantage of those countries ; 

 for grass is more abuudant in this country than in 

 any other. It flourishes here more than in any oth- 

 er country. It is here in a greater variety of sorts ; 

 and for fineness in point of size, there is no part of 

 the world which can equal what might be obtained 

 from some of our downs, merely by keeping the land 

 ungrazed till the month of July. 



218. When I had obtained the straw, I got some of 

 it made into plat. One piece of this plat was equal 

 in point of colour, and superior in point of fineness, 

 even to the plat of the bonnet of Miss WOODHOUSE. 

 It seemed, therefore, now to be necessary to do no- 

 thing more than to make all this well known to the 

 country. As the SOCIETY OF ARTS had interested it- 

 self in the matter, and as I heard that, through its 

 laudable zeal, several sowing's of the foreign grass- 

 seed had been made in England, I communicated an 

 account of my experiments to that Society. The 

 first communication was made by me on the 19th of 

 February last, when I sent to the Society, specimens 

 of my straw and also of the plat. Some time after 

 this I attended a committee of the Society on the 

 subject, and gave them a verbal account of the way 

 in which I had gone to work. 



219. The committee had, before this, given some 

 of my straw to certain manufacturers of plat, in order 

 to see what it would produce. These manufacturers, 

 with the exception of one, brought such specimens of 

 plat as to induce, at first sight, any one to believe 

 that it was nonsense to think of bringing the thing 

 to any degree of perfection ! But, was it possible to 

 believe this ? Was it possible to believe that it 

 could answer to import straw from Italy, to pay a 

 twenty per cent, duty on that straw, and to have it 



