422 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



and sandy soils, where a natural defect exists as regards the raising 

 of seedling grasses, and which defect is corrected, and such soils 

 improved for the growth of the valuable species of grass, by the 

 rich mould supplied to the soil by the transplanted turf.* 



APPENDIX II. 



Of the Grasses which afford the best culms, or straw, for the manu- 

 facture of Straw Bonnets, such as will equal, and may surpass, the 

 finest Leghorn Manufacture. 



STRAW-PLAiT,in imitation of the celebrated Leghorn manufacture, 

 has been made in England for many years past, but the practice till 

 lately had been confined to the London manufacturers of straw bon- 

 nets. Above seventeen years since, land was taken at Ampthill, on 

 the estate of the late Earl of Upper Ossery, for the express purpose 

 of raising straw for this kind of plait ;t and a few years since, a very 

 fine straw bonnet was sent to the Duchess of Bedford from Leigh- 

 ton Buzzard, where it had been manufactured from English straw. 

 About three years since, Miss Woodhouse, a farmer's daughter of 

 Connecticut, transmitted to the Society of Arts in London, a 

 straw bonnet in imitation of the Leghorn, made of the straw of 

 Poa pratensis, smooth-stalked meadow-grass (or the spear-grass of 

 America), which, from its excellence, obtained the reward of the 



* The author believes, that the plan for raising the seeds of all the valuable 

 permanent pasture-grasses, on every farm for its own supply, detailed at pp. 32, 38, 

 and 39, of this work, will, if properly acted on, remove every difficulty which may 

 have hitherto arisen from the want of their seeds ; and he takes this opportunity to 

 inform his readers, that having entered into the firm of Cormack and Son, Nursery 

 and Seedsmen, New Cross, London, and having made the actual raising of genuine 

 seeds of all the essential permanent pasture-grasses, clovers, and agricultural seeds 

 of every description, one of the objects of his arrangements with that old established 

 firm, he therefore trusts, in a short time, to be able, from the New Cross Nursery, 

 to supply the Agricultural public with these seeds at a price sufficiently low to 

 insure a demand for general farm practice. 



f About twenty years since, Mr. Corston, an eminent manufacturer, then of 

 Ludgate Hill, and now of Fincham, Norfolk, succeeded with the straw of rye, 

 which had been raised at Ampthill for the purpose, in manufacturing fine Leghorn 

 plait, which, from its great merit, obtained the award of the gold medal from the 

 Society of Arts in London. 



