142 ENGLISH STRAW PLAT. [No. 



it must lie longer. But the numerous sowings which 

 I have mentioned will afford you so many Chances, 

 so many opportunities of having fine weather, that 

 the risk about weather would necessarily be very 

 small. If wet weather should come, and if your 

 straw remain out in it any length of time, it will be 

 spoiled ; but, according to the mode of sowing above 

 pointed out, you really could stand very little chance 

 of losing straw by bad weather. If you had some 

 straw out bleaching, and the weather were to appear 

 suddenly to be about to change, the quantity that you 

 would have out would not be large enough to prevent 

 you from putting it under cover, and keeping it there 

 till the weather changed. 



231. HOUSING THE STRAW. When your 

 straw is nicely bleached, gather it up, and with the 

 same string that you used to tie it when green, tie it 

 up again into little sheaves. Put it by in some room 

 where there is no damp, and where mice and rats are 

 not suffered to inhabit. Here it is always ready for use, 

 and it will keep, I dare say, four or five years very well. 



232. THE PLATTING. This is now so well 

 understood that nothing need be said about the man- 

 ner of doing the work. But much might be said about 

 the measures to be pursued by land-owners, by parish 

 officers, by farmers, and more especially by gentlemen 

 and ladies of sense, public spirit, and benevolence of 

 disposition.' The thing will be done; the manufac- 

 ture will spread itself all over this kingdom ; but the 

 exertions of those whom I have here pointed out might 

 hasten the period of its being brought to perfection. 

 And I beg such gentlemen and ladies to reflect on the 

 vast importance of such manufacture, which it is im- 

 possible to cause to produce any-thing but good. One 

 .of the great misfortunes of England at this day is, 

 that the land has had taken away from it those employ* 

 merits for its women and children which were so ne- 

 cessary to the well-being of the agricultural labourer. 

 The spinning, the carding, the reeling, the knitting ; 

 these have been all taken away from the land, and 

 given to the Lords of the Loom, the haughty lords of 



