P L 
PLAT, adj. [platt, Su. Goth.p/nf, Teut.] Plain. Obso¬ 
lete. 
My will is this for plat conclufion 
Withouten any replication. Chaucer's Kn. Tale. 
PLAT, adv. [Tent, plainly and openly ; platt, Su. Goth, 
entirely, in which fenle Gower has ufed it, as he alfo has 
for clofely; hut it is not now, in any fenfe, ufed in Eng¬ 
land. Chaucer’s exprelfion, which I cite, was probably 
once proverbial. Todd.~\ Plainly ; downright: 
Thus warned him ful plat and eke ful plaine 
His doughter. Chaucer's Monk's Tale. 
Plainly; fmoothly. 
PLAT, f. Work performed by platting. This word 
is common in Hertfordlliire and Buckinghamlhire for 
the draw woven into materials which chiefly make bon¬ 
nets for women.— Bermuda hats are worn by our ladies ; 
they are made of a fort of mat, or (as they call it) platting 
made of the palmetto-leaf. Bp. Berkeley's Prop, for a 
College in Bermuda, 1725. 
Straw-plat, either in bundles or made tip into bonnets, 
has been for a long time imported into this country, at a 
very great expend?, from Italy and other places ; for it 
is well known that ftraiv-bonnets, or Leghorn-bonnets, 
have been the univerfal wear for females in England any 
time thefe twenty years. Now it did not require the 
ftrong and diferiminating mind of Mr. Cobbett to difeo- 
ver, or at lead to conje6ture, that fome of the grades or 
other vegetable productions of our country might anfwer 
the purpofe equally welf; and thus employ many idle 
hands, and reduce the price of what feems to have be¬ 
come a neceflary of life for every girl of a certain age and 
appearance. It was, however, referved for Mr. Cobbett 
to demondrate that this was to be done, and to explain 
the procefs, and produce the fpecimens, before the Society 
of Arts at their lad general meeting, upon which occafion 
he received the large filver medal from the hands of 
H. R. H. the duke of Sudex. The following is a copy of 
his communication. 
1. Agreeably to your requed, I now communicate to 
you a datement of thofe particulars which you wiflied to 
podefs, relative to the fpecimens of draw and of plat 
which I have at different times fent to you for the infpec- 
tion of the Society. . 
2. That my datement may not come too abruptly upon 
thofe members of the Society who have not had an op¬ 
portunity of witneding the progrefs of this intereding 
inquiry, I will take a fliort review of the circumflances 
which led to the making of my experiments. 
3. In the month of June, 1S21, a gentleman, a member 
of the Society, informed me, by letter, that a Mifs 
Woodhoufe, a farmer’s daughter of Weathersfield, in 
Connecticut, had communicated to the Society a draw- 
bonnet of very fine materials and manufacture; that 
this bonnet (according to her account) was made from 
the draw of a fort of grafs called Poa pratenfis; that it 
was unknown whether the fame grafs would grow in 
England; that it was defirable to afeertain whether this 
grafs would grow in England ; that at all events it was 
defirable to get from America fome of the feed of this 
grafs ; and that, for this purpofe, my informant, knowing 
that I had a fon in America, addreded himfelf to me, 
it being his opinion, that, if materials fimilar to thofe 
ufed by Mifs Woodhoufe could, by any means, be 
grown in England, the beneflt to the nation mud be 
confiderable. 
4. In confequence of this application, I wrote to my 
fon James (then at New York), directing him to do what 
he was able in order to caule iuccefs to the undertaking. 
On the receipt of my letter, in July, he went from New 
York to Weathersfield (about 120 miles) ; fa\v Mifs 
Woodhoufe ; made the necedary inquiry, obtained a fpe- 
cimen of the grafs, and alfo of the plat, which other per- 
fons at Weathersfield, as well as Mifs Woodhoufe, were 
A T. 615 
in the habit of making; and, having acquired the necef- 
fary information as to cutting the grals and bleaching 
the draw', he tranfmitted to me an account of the matter, 
which account, together with his fpecimens of grafs and 
plat, I received in the month of September. 
5. I was now, when I came to fee the fpecimen of grafs, 
convinced that Mifs Woodhoufe’s materials could be 
grown in England, a conviction, which, if it had not been 
complete at once, would have been made complete im¬ 
mediately afterwards by the fight of a bunch of bonnet- 
draw imported from Leghorn, which draw was fhown 
to me by the importer, and which I found to be that of 
two or three forts of our common grafs, and of oats, wheat, 
and rye. 
6. That the grafs, or plants, could be grown in England, 
was therefore now certain, and indeed that they were, in 
point of commonnefs, next to the earth itlelf. But, 
before the grafs could with propriety be called materials 
for bonnet-making, there was the bleaching to be per¬ 
formed; and it was by no means certain that this could 
be accomplifhed by means of an Englifh fun, the differ¬ 
ence between which and that of Italy or Connecticut 
was well known to be very great. 
7. My experiments have, I prefume, completely re¬ 
moved this doubt. I think that the draw produced by 
me to the Society, and alfo fome of the pieces of plat, are 
of a colour which no draw or plat can furpafs. All that 
remains, therefore, is for me to give an account of the 
manner in which I cut and bleached the grafs which I 
fubmittvd to the Society in the date of draw. 
8. Fird, as to the feafon of the year: all the draw, 
except that of one fort of couch-grafs and the long cop¬ 
pice grafs, which two w'ere got in Suffex, were got from 
grafs cut in Hertfordlliire on the aid of June. A grafs 
headffind in a wheat-field had been mowed during the 
fore part of the day ; and, in the afternoon, I went and 
took a handful here and a handful there out of the 
fwarths. When I had collected as much as I could well 
carry, I took it to my friend’s houfe, and proceeded to 
prepare it for bleaching according to the information 
fent me from America by my fon ; that is to fay, I put 
my grals into a fhallow tub, put boiling water upon it 
until it was covered by the water, let it remain in that 
date for ten minutes, then took it out and laid it ver)' 
thinly on a clofely-mowed lawn in a garden. But I 
fhould obferve, that before I put the grals into the tub I 
tied it up in fmall bundles or (heaves, each bundle being 
about fix inches through at the butt-end. This was 
neceflary in order to be able to take the grafs, at the end 
of ten minutes, out of the water, without throwing it 
into a confufed mixture as to tops and tails. Being tied 
up in little bundles, I could eafily, with a prong, take it 
out of the hot water. The bundles were put into a 
large wicker-bafket, carried to the lawn in the garden, 
and there taken out one by one, and laid in fwarths as 
before mentioned. 
9. It was laid very thinly, almofi might I fay that no 
dalk of grafs covered another. The fwarths were turned 
once a-day. The bleaching was completed at the end of 
(even days from the time of fealding and laying out. 
June is a fine month. The grafs was, as it happened, 
cut on the longeft day of the year; and the weather was 
remarkably fine and clear. But the grafs which I after¬ 
wards cut in Suffex, was cut in the fir It week in Augulf, 
1823; and, as to the w'eather, it was a mixture of good 
and bad, cloudy and fine. 
10. The grafs cut in Suffex was as well bleached as 
that cut in Hertfordlliire ; fo that it is evident, that we 
never can have a fummer that will not afford fun fuffi- 
cient for this buiinefs. 
11. The part of the draw ufed for platting is that part 
of the ftalk which is above the upper joint; that part 
which is between the upper joint and the feed-branches. 
.This part is taken out, and the relt of the llraw thrown 
away. But the whole plant muff be cut and bleached ; 
becaule, 
