STRAW PLAT. 159 



merce. The home manufacture was, in consequence, 

 very much increased and encouraged ; its improve- 

 ment likewise became an object of importance, and 

 many attempts were made to render all foreign sup- 

 plies unnecessary. 



Mr. Corston, an eminent manufacturer of straw 

 hats, was among the first who took active measures 

 to promote this desired result, and at the beginning 

 of the present century, he made strenuous exertions 

 to obtain a successful imitation of the Leghorn plat 

 in this country. 



In prosecuting his endeavours with persevering 

 energy, he appears to have been actuated more by 

 the disinterested feelings of the philanthropist than by 

 the petty views of the tradesman, and to obtain an 

 increase of healthy and profitable occupation for his 

 countrywomen in the humbler walks of life was the 

 ruling motive for his exertion. 



Taking an average of the ten years preceding 

 1804, he found that 78,000 Leghorn hats were im- 

 ported annually into England, besides a quantity 

 of plat, which, supposing five hats are made from one 

 pound of plat, could be manufactured into two or 

 three thousand more. From this and other data he 

 calculated that if the foreign plat were superseded by 

 that of English growth and manufacture, employ- 

 ment would at once be obtained for 5,000 young 

 women and female children ; and that 2,000 acres of 

 very poor land, unfit for other purposes, might be 

 brought into profitable cultivation. 



For the furtherance of his object he instituted 

 a school at Fincham, in Norfolk. On a poor and 

 sandy soil rye-grass seed was sown, in the pro- 

 portion of two bushels per acre. Each of these acres 

 produced forty pieces of Leghorn plat of fifty-five 

 yards in length, and employed for one week thirteen 

 children to sort the straw, and eighty to plat it. 



