336 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



From the United States Gazette. 



On the Manufacture of Straw and Grass Bonnets. 

 No. IV. 



Thus we sec, that although one of tlie two 

 ladies who have made the important discovery 

 of the conversion of a native grass into a costly 

 bonnet, was suffered to pass with empty praise, 

 by all the patriotic Societies in the United 

 States, her labors have been made one source 

 of national wealth (o England, and that from a 

 consciousness of their importance, and as a 

 grateful return for her liberality of conduct, 

 she has been generously rewarded by the Lon- 

 don Society. We see also that Mr. Parry, one 

 of their own countrymen, has been compliment- 

 ed with a large silver medal for the manufacture 

 of Leghorn plat, from straw imported from 

 Italy : and lastly, to prevent all interference with 

 home industry in the manufacture in question, 

 the government have laid a duty of 3/. (^13, 33^ 

 per dozen on imported plats, and 17s. (^3,07) 

 a ib. on the plat not made up, and a duty of five 

 per cent, ad valorem on the imported straw 

 from Italy. 



The business of promoting the manufacture 

 of straw and grass bonnets, has engaged the at- 

 tention of Cobbetl, who has prosecuted it with 

 his well known zeal ; and he has lately been pre- 

 sented by the same London Society, through 

 their President the Duke of Sussex, with a me- 

 dal, value lb guineas, (^70,) for his fine straw 

 hat made from British materials, and for his ex- 

 ertions in drawing the attention of the British 

 public to the manufacture. He says very just- 

 ly " thousands of pages of biography are filled 

 with deeds, none of which deserve to be men- 

 tioned on the same day with this act of Miss 

 VVoodhouse." (July 19, 1323.) 



TUo ra^rchaMs of Salem, Blass. probably did 

 not know of these " doings" in England, but 

 fhey evince most clearly how little the enemies 

 of the New Tariff are authorized in saying, 

 as they daily do, and as they themselves did in 

 their memorial to Congress against it, " that 

 the Statesmen of the old world are relaxing 

 the rigor of their own systems, and yielding 

 themselves to the rational doctrine, that nation- 

 al wealth is best promoted by a free interchange 

 of commodities upon principles of perfest reci- 

 procity.''^ 



The first thing done by Cobbett, was to search 

 for the same grass in England as that sent 

 by Miss Woodhouse to the London Society ; and 

 then to try experiments with other native 

 grasses of that country, in order to see whether 

 they would not answer equally well with the 

 American specie.*. He says (July 19, 1823,) 

 that he had found the American grass, and had 

 just then cut and bleached plants of it in his 

 little cow pasture at Kensington, his present 

 place of residence. The same grass abounds in 

 England, and he has made some as bright as 

 Miss Woodh6use ever made, some of it 

 was as fine as the hair of her head," — one of 

 his correspondents, a Mr. Clarke, made some 

 beautiful plat from the sueet vernal grass.* 



The official return of the number of straw 



* Thi3 grass is also a native of the United States, 

 and flowers before any other in Pennsylvania, where it 

 abound" on land manured by sheep. It is the aK(/ioar- 

 anlhn.tn oioralum of the botanists so called from its or- 

 dour when dried. 



hats imported into England from Leghorn, dur- 

 ing the years 1820, '21, '22, and down to April 

 1823, was 366,428; and in 1823, 3512 lbs. of 

 plat were imported. The duty upon each hat 

 was five shillings and eight ponce sterling. — 

 The whole amount of duty on the above num- 

 ber was therefore $461,427,48. If, says Cob- 

 bett, we succeed in the manufacture, only think 

 of the quantity of hats that are wanted in South 

 America, the West Indies and the United States, 

 only think of the magnitude of the thing ! not 

 less than five millions of people in this king- 

 dom, wear these straw hats. (Jan. 21, 1823.) 

 "It would be no trifling thing to take this arti- 

 cle of Leghorn hats out of our custom house 

 books; but this is a trifle, compared to the 

 extension of the manufacture ; to the introduc- 

 ing of it into houses and families ; to the mak- 

 ing it the means of employing and of feeding 

 without pauperism, a large portion of the la- 

 boring people. Colbert was immortalized on 

 account of his encouragement of certain manu- 

 factures. I am greatly deceived if he ever 

 encouraged any thing of greater importance to 

 France,than this is to England." (July 19, 1823.) 

 Now, on the supposition that Cobbett, aided 

 by the Society for the encouragement of arts, 

 and by the governmental duty on imported Leg- 

 horns and straw plats, succeeds in making good 

 his promise to the British public, to knock up 

 foreign trade in those articles in England, the 

 treasury of the country will be deprived of this 

 great source of revenue ; yet we see, Ihe fear 

 of this loss does not interfere with the prevailing 

 and commendable policy of the government, and 

 the patriots of England, of protecting home-in- 

 dustry; because they know, that unless the 

 poor support themselves by labor, they must be 

 supported by the public ; and experience has 

 taught them, that poverty and increase ofcrimes 

 are closely connected. They also know that it 

 is of much more importance to provide employ- 

 ment for poor women and children in England, 

 than to add to the national coffers, by duties 

 paid for a foreign fabric, which can be made at 

 home ; and that what the revenue loses by the 

 cessation of the importation of the bonnets, 

 will be made up by the produce of the returns 

 for the English bonnets exported, by the duties 

 paid by the articles constituting those returns. 

 Our Congress unfortunately do not reason in 

 this plain common sense way ; all they look to 

 is present revemte, znA 9.Te indifferent to the ap- 

 palling spectacle of 25,000 women and children 

 thrown out of employ, in consequence of the 

 domestic manuiactures of bonnets being suspend- 

 ed, and by reason of the want of a foreign mar- 

 ket, and a deluge of cheap bonnets from Leg- 

 horn. 

 Cobbett very justly says that he ' is thorough- 

 'y convinced, that the causing of one new apple 

 tree to be introduced,* or the causing of one 

 Leghorn hat to be kept out by an English one, 

 are ten thousand times more value to the coun- 

 try, than the library of the late King, which is 

 to cost the nation forty thousand pounds for a 

 place to put it in.' This is a much more sound 

 doctrine than the hackneyed and common place 

 saying of Dean Swift, respecting the merit of a 

 man in making two blades of grass grow where 

 one grew before. 1 will fearlessly assert in 



* Cobbett has introduced and sold grafts and nu- 

 merous American apple trees in England. Register. 

 July 19, 1823. 



like manner, that the keeping 25,000 wome^ «' 

 and children at work, (who will be thrown oo (I 

 of employ by the destruction of the bonnet manu oi 

 factory in New England,) is ten thousand time d 

 more important to the people of the Unitei « 

 States, than all the Societies for colonizing tl^ ii 

 blacks ; for converting the people of India aOi fe 

 China to cliristianity, or for ameliorating thf il 

 condition of the Jews" in Europe, and forcoap oi 

 ing them to come to the United States, a coun iil 

 try, which furnishes so small a scope for tbt fi 

 indulgence of their prevailing passion : and-, « 

 most sincerely regret to see amiable ladies efl) i 

 gaging in such comparatively useless, and cet i 

 tainly impracticable projects, when such a nohb fj 

 object as the encouragement of the straw anc ij 

 grass bonnet manufactory, exists for the exer i 

 lion of their benevolent talents, but remaidt ( 

 unattended to. si 



A Friend to Agriculture, Commerce and Manu/acturet 



From the Old Colony Memorial. 



FRUIT TREES. !• 



Every friend to the science of horticulturt&i 

 must be gratified with the attention bestow*- 

 ed on the subject, and the improvement!' 

 which are making at the present day. Em* 

 ploynient in this branch of agriculture, is both 

 salutary and profitable, and it is commendable 

 in every individual to contribute to its improve- 

 ment. Our knowledge, however, of the physi- 

 ology and of nature's laws, which govern in the 

 vegetable kingdom, is quite too limited to justify 

 conjectural assertions for facts substantiated by 

 experience and observation. Theory or hypo- 

 thetical disquisition will neither instruct nor sat- 

 isfy the unlearned class of the community, whc 

 aspire only to practical knowledge derived froni 

 well established facts. It appears that a wn- 

 ter in the American Farmer, in a piece which ia 

 copied into other papers, has hazarded the posi- 

 tive assertion, that the common practice of white j 

 washing trees is highly detrimental to their 

 growth, and that, if persevered in, will prove 

 fatal to the trees. The writer predicates his 

 doctrine on the principle that the applica- 

 tion of white wash obstructs the pores and im- 

 pedes perspiration from the bark of the trees. 

 But it is unfortunate that we are too prone to 

 step beyond the limits within which our actual 

 knowledge ought to confine us. The supposed 

 analogy between animal and vegetable life is 

 problematical ; and a cause, which in one case 

 may derange the functions, may in the other be 

 productive of salutary effects. In the winter 

 season when the sap has receded from the 

 trunk, and the exhalent vessels being in a qui- 

 escent state, there can be no perspiration, and 

 before the sap receives the vivifying principle 

 in the spring, the white washing is generallj 

 applied, and it adheres to the tree but a few 

 weeks. It is well understood that in the summer 

 season the leaves are the organs which perforin 

 the functions of inhalation and exhalation, in a 

 manner similar to the lungs in animals. Whe; 

 ther these with the roots are capable of sub- 

 serving all the purposes of vegetable life for 

 a limited time, 1 presume not to decide, but am 

 ready to declare my disbelief that the subtl? 

 fluid which transpires from the pores of 

 frees can be impeded by a thin coat of white- 

 wash. Lime attracts moisture from the atmos- 

 phere Until it becomes saturated, and why majr 



