Chapter VI: Part 6

200. In _household goods_, the _warm_, the _strong_, the _durable_, ought always to be kept in view. Oak tables, bedsteads and stools, chairs of oak or of yew tree, and never a bit of miserable deal board. Things of this sort ought to last several lifetimes. A labourer ought to inherit from his great grandfather something besides his toil. As to bedding, and other things of that sort, all ought to be good in their nature, of a durable quality, and plain in their colour and form. The plates, dishes, mugs, and things of that kind, should be of _pewter_, or even of wood. Any-thing is better than crockery-ware. Bottles to carry a-field should be of wood. Formerly, nobody but the gypsies and mumpers, that went a hop-picking in the season, carried glass or earthen bottles. As to _glass_ of any sort, I do not know what business it has in any man's house, unless he be rich enough to live on his means. It pays a tax, in many cases, to the amount of two-thirds of its cost. In short, when a house is once furnished with sufficient goods, there ought to be no renewal of hardly any part of them wanted for half an age, except in case of destruction by fire. Good management in this way leaves the man's wages to provide an _abundance of good food and good raiment_; and these are the things that make happy families; these are the things that make a good, kind, sincere, and brave people; not little pamphlets about "loyalty" and "content." A good man will be contented fast enough, if he be fed and clad sufficiently; but if a man be not well fed and clad, he is a base wretch to be contented.

201. _Fuel_ should be, if possible, provided in summer, or at least some of it. Turf and peat must be got in summer, and some _wood_ may. In the woodland countries, the next winter ought to be thought of in _June_, when people hardly know what to do with the fuelwood; and something should, if possible, be saved in the bark-harvest to get a part of the fuel for the next winter. Fire is a capital article. To have no fire, or a bad fire, to sit by, is a most dismal thing. In such a state man and wife must be something out of the common way to be in good humour with each other, to say nothing of colds and other ailments which are the natural consequence of such misery. If we suppose the great Creator to condescend to survey his works in detail, what object can be so pleasing to him as that of the labourer, after his return from the toils of a cold winter day, sitting with his wife and children round a cheerful fire, while the wind whistles in the chimney and the rain pelts the roof? But, of all God's creation, what is so miserable to behold or to think of as a wretched, half-starved family creeping to their nest of flocks or straw, there to lie shivering, till sent forth by the fear of absolutely expiring from want?

HOPS.

202. I treated of them before; but before I conclude this little Work, it is necessary to speak of them again. I made a mistake as to the _tax_ on the Hops. The positive tax is 2_d._ a pound, and I (in former editions) stated it at 4_d._ However, in all such cases, there falls upon the _consumer_ the _expenses_ attending the paying of the tax. That is to say, the cost of interest of capital in the grower who pays the tax, and who must pay for it, whether his hops be cheap or dear. Then the _trouble_ it gives him, and the rules he is compelled to obey in the drying and bagging, and which cause him great _expense_. So that the tax on hops of our own English growth, may _now be reckoned_ to cost the _consumer_ about 3-1/4_d._ a pound.

YEAST.

203. Yeast is a great thing in domestic management. I have once before published a receipt for making _yeast-cakes_, I will do it again here.

204. In Long Island they make _yeast-cakes_. A parcel of these cakes is made _once a year_. That is often enough. And, when you bake, you take one of these cakes (or more according to the bulk of the batch) and with them raise your bread. The very best bread I ever ate in my life was lightened with these cakes.

205. The materials for a good batch of cakes are as follows:--3 ounces of good fresh Hops; 3-1/2 pounds of Rye Flour; 7 pounds of Indian Corn Meal; and one Gallon of Water.--Rub the hops, so as to separate them. Put them into the water, which is to be boiling at the time. Let them boil half an hour. Then strain the liquor through a fine sieve into an earthen vessel. While the liquor is hot, put in the Rye-Flour; stirring the liquor well, and quickly, as the Rye-Flour goes into it. The day after, when it is working, put in the Indian Meal, stirring it well as it goes in. Before the Indian Meal be all in, the mess will be very stiff; and it will, in fact, be _dough_, very much of the consistence of the dough that bread is made of.--Take this dough; knead it well, as you would for _pie-crust_. Roll it out with a rolling-pin, as you roll out pie-crust, to the thickness of about a third of an inch. When you have it (or a part of it at a time) rolled out, cut it up into cakes with a tumbler glass turned upside down, or with something else that will answer the same purpose. Take a clean board (a _tin_ may be better) and put the cakes _to dry in the sun_. Turn them every day; let them receive _no wet_; and they will become as hard as ship biscuit. Put them into a bag, or box, and keep them in a place _perfectly free from damp_. When you bake, take two cakes, of the thickness above-mentioned, and about 3 inches in diameter; put them into hot water, _over-night_, having cracked them first. Let the vessel containing them stand near the fire-place all night. They will dissolve by the morning, and then you use them in setting your sponge (as it is called) precisely as you would use the yeast of beer.

206. There are _two things_ which may be considered by the reader as obstacles. FIRST, where are _we_ to get the _Indian Meal_? Indian Meal is used merely because it is of a _less adhesive_ nature than that of wheat. White pea-meal, or even barley-meal, would do just as well. But SECOND, to _dry_ the cakes, to make them (and _quickly_ too, mind) _as hard as ship biscuit_ (which is much harder than the timber of Scotch firs or Canada firs;) and to do this _in the sun_ (for it must not be _fire_,) where are we, in this climate, to _get the sun_? In 1816 we could not; for, that year, melons rotted in the _glazed frames_ and never ripened. But, in every nine summers out of ten, we have in June, in July, or in August, _a fortnight of hot sun_, and that is enough. Nature has not given us a _peach-climate_; but we _get peaches_. The cakes, when put in the sun, may have a _glass sash_, or a _hand-light_, put over them. This would make their birth _hotter_ than that of the hottest open-air situation in America. In short to a farmer's wife, or any good housewife, all the little difficulties to the attainment of such an object would appear as nothing. The _will_ only is required; and, if there be not that, it is useless to think of the attempt.

SOWING SWEDISH TURNIP SEED.

207. It is necessary to be a little more full than I have been before as to the _manner of sowing_ this seed; and I shall make my directions such as to be applied on a small or a large scale.--Those that want to transplant on a large scale will, of course, as to the other parts of the business, refer to my larger work.--It is to get plants for _transplanting_ that I mean to sow the Swedish Turnip Seed. The _time_ for sowing must depend a little upon the nature of the situation and soil. In the north of England, perhaps early in April may be best; but, in any of these southern counties, any time after the _middle of April and before the 10th of May_, is quite early enough. The ground which is to receive the seed should be made very _fine_, and manured with wood-ashes, or with good compost well mixed with the earth. Dung is not so good; for it breeds the fly more; or, at least, I think so. The seed should be sown in drills _an inch deep_, made as pointed out under the head of _Sowing_ in my book on _Gardening_. When deposited in the drills _evenly_ but _not thickly_, the ground should be raked across the drills, so as to fill them up; and then the whole of the ground should be _trodden hard_, with shoes not nailed, and not very thick in the sole. The ground should be laid out in four-feet _beds_ for the reasons mentioned in the "_Gardener_." When the seeds come up, thin the plants to two inches apart as soon as you think them clear from the fly; for, if left thicker, they injure each other even in this infant state. Hoe frequently between the rows even before thinning the plants; and when they are thinned, hoe well and frequently between them; for this has a tendency to make them strong; and the hoeing _before thinning_ helps to keep off the fly. A rod of ground, the rows being eight inches apart, and plants two inches apart in the row, will contain about _two thousand two hundred_ plants. An acre in rows four feet apart and the plants a foot apart in the row, will take about ten thousand four hundred and sixty plants. So that to transplant an acre, you must sow about _five rods of ground_. The plants should be kept very clean; and, by the last week in June, or first in July, you put them out. I have put them out (in England) at all times between 7th of June and middle of August. The first is certainly earlier than I like; and the very finest I ever grew in England, and the finest I ever saw for a large piece, were transplanted on the 14th of July. But one year with another, the last week in June is the best time. For size of plants, manner of transplanting, intercultivation, preparing the land, and the rest, see "_Year's Residence in America_."

No. VIII.

_On the converting of English Grass, and Grain Plants cut green, into Straw, for the purpose of making Plat for Hats and Bonnets._

KENSINGTON, MAY 30, 1823.

208. The foregoing Numbers have treated, chiefly, of the management of the affairs of a labourer's family, and more particularly of the mode of disposing of the money earned by the labour of the family. The present Number will point out what I hope may become _an advantageous kind of labour_. All along I have proceeded upon the supposition, that the wife and children of the labourer be, as constantly as possible, employed _in work of some sort or other_. The cutting, the bleaching, the sorting, and the platting of straw, seem to be, of all employments, the best suited to the wives and children of country labourers; and the discovery which I have made, as to the means of obtaining the necessary materials, will enable them to enter at once upon that employment.

209. Before I proceed to give my directions relative to the performance of this sort of labour, I shall give a sort of history of the discovery to which I have just alluded.

210. The practice of making hats, bonnets, and other things, of _straw_, is perhaps of very ancient date; but not to waste time in fruitless inquiries, it is very well known that, for many years past, straw coverings for the head have been greatly in use in England, in America, and, indeed, in almost all the countries that we know much of. In this country the manufacture was, only a few years ago, _very flourishing_; but it has now greatly declined, and has left in poverty and misery those whom it once well fed and clothed.

211. The cause of this change has been, the importation of the straw hats and bonnets from _Italy_, greatly superior, in durability and beauty, to those made in England. The plat made in England was made of the straw of _ripened grain_. It was, in general, _split_; but the main circumstance was, that it was made of the straw of _ripened grain_; while the Italian plat was made of the straw of grain, or grass, _cut green_. Now, the straw of ripened grain or grass is brittle; or, rather, rotten. It _dies_ while standing, and, in point of toughness, the difference between it and straw from plants cut green is much about the same as the difference between a stick that has _died on the tree_, and one that has been _cut from the tree_. But besides the difference in point of toughness, strength, and durability, there was the difference in beauty. The colour of the Italian plat was better; the plat was brighter; and the Indian straws, being _small whole_ straws, instead of small straws made by the splitting of large ones, here was a _roundness_ in them, that gave _light and shade_ to the plat, which could not be given by our flat bits of straw.

212. It seems odd, that nobody should have set to work to find out how the Italians _came_ by this fine straw. The importation of these Italian articles was chiefly from the port of LEGHORN; and therefore the bonnets imported were called _Leghorn Bonnets_. The straw manufacturers in this country seem to have made no effort to resist this invasion from Leghorn. And, which is very curious, the Leghorn _straw_ has now began to be imported, and to be _platted in this country_. So that we had _hands_ to plat as well as the Italians. All that we wanted was the _same kind of straw_ that the Italians had: and it is truly wonderful that these importations from Leghorn should have gone on increasing year after year, and our domestic manufacture dwindling away at a like pace, without there having been any inquiry relative to the way in which the Italians _got their straw_! Strange, that we should have imported even _straw_ from Italy, without inquiring whether similar straw could not be got in England! There really seems to have been an opinion, that England could no more produce this straw than it could produce the sugar-cane.

213. Things were in this state, when in 1821, a Miss WOODHOUSE, a farmer's daughter in CONNECTICUT, sent a straw-bonnet of her own making to the _Society of Arts_ in London. This bonnet, superior in fineness and beauty to anything of the kind that had come from Leghorn, the maker stated to consist of a sort of grass of which she sent along with the bonnet some of the _seeds_. The question was, then, would these precious seeds _grow and produce plants in perfection in England_? A large quantity of the seed had not been sent: and it was therefore, by a member of the Society, thought desirable to get, with as little delay as possible, a considerable quantity of the seed.

214. It was in this stage of the affair that my attention was called to it. The member just alluded to applied to me to get the seed from America. I was of opinion that there could be no sort of grass in Connecticut that would not, and that _did not_, grow and flourish in England. My son JAMES, who was then at New-York, had instructions from me, in June 1821, to go to Miss WOODHOUSE, and to send me home an account of the matter. In September, the same year, I heard from him, who sent me an account of the cutting and bleaching, and also a specimen of the plat and grass of Connecticut. Miss WOODHOUSE had told the Society of Arts, that the grass used was the _Poa Pratensis_. This is the _smooth-stalked meadow-grass_. So that it was quite useless to send for _seed_. It was clear, that we had _grass enough_ in England, if we could but make it into straw as handsome as that of Italy.

215. Upon my publishing an account of what had taken place with regard to the American Bonnet, _an importer of Italian straw_ applied to me to know whether I would _undertake to import American straw_. He was in the habit of importing Italian straw, and of having it platted in this country; but having seen the bonnet of Miss WOODHOUSE, he was anxious to get the American straw. This gentleman showed me some Italian straw which he had imported, and as the seed heads were not on, I could not see what plant it was. The gentleman who showed the straw to me, told me (and, doubtless, he believed) that the plant was one that _would not grow in England_. I however, who looked at the straw with the eyes of a farmer, perceived that it consisted of dry _oat_, _wheat_, and _rye_ plants, and of _Bennet_ and other _common grass_ plants.

216. This quite settled the point of _growth in England_. It was now certain that we had the plants in abundance; and the only question that remained to be determined was, Had we SUN to give to those plants the beautiful colour which the American and Italian straw had? If that colour were to be obtained by _art_, by any chemical applications, we could obtain it as easily as the Americans or the Italians; but, if it were the gift of the SUN solely, here might be a difficulty impossible for us to overcome. My experiments have proved that the fear of such difficulty was wholly groundless.

217. It was late in September 1821 that I obtained this knowledge, as to the kind of plants that produced the foreign straw. I could, at that time of the year, do nothing in the way of removing my doubts as to the _powers of our Sun_ in the bleaching of grass; but I resolved to do this when the proper season for bleaching should return. Accordingly, when the next month of _June_ came, I went into the country for the purpose. I made my experiments, and, in short, I proved to demonstration, that we had not only the _plants_, but the _sun_ also, necessary for the making of straw, yielding in no respect to that of America or of Italy. I think that, upon the whole, we have greatly the advantage of those countries; for grass is more abundant in this country than in any other. It flourishes here more than in any other country. It is here in a greater variety of sorts; and for _fineness_ in point of size, there is no part of the world which can equal what might be obtained from some of our _downs_, merely by keeping the land ungrazed till the month of July.

218. When I had obtained the straw, I got some of it made into plat. One piece of this plat was equal in point of colour, and superior in point of fineness, even to the plat of the bonnet, of Miss WOODHOUSE. It seemed, therefore, now to be necessary to do nothing more than to _make all this well known to the country_. As the SOCIETY OF ARTS had interested itself in the matter, and as I heard that, through its laudable zeal, several _sowings of the foreign grass-seed_ had been made in England, I communicated an account of my experiments to that Society. The first communication was made by me on the 19th of February last, when I sent to the Society, specimens of my straw and also of the plat. Some time after this I attended a committee of the Society on the subject, and gave them a verbal account of the way in which I had gone to work.

219. The committee had, before this, given some of my straw to certain _manufacturers_ of plat, in order to see what it would produce. These manufacturers, with the exception of one, brought _such_ specimens of plat as to induce, at first sight, any one to believe that it was nonsense to think of bringing the thing to any degree of perfection! But, was it _possible_ to believe this? Was it possible to believe that it could _answer_ to import straw from Italy, to pay a twenty per cent. duty on that straw, and to have it platted here; and that it would _not answer_ to turn into plat straw of just the same sort grown in England? It was impossible to believe _this_; but possible enough to believe, that persons now making profit by Italian straw, or plat, or bonnets, would rather that English straw should come to shut out the Italian and to put an end to the Leghorn trade.

220. In order to show the character of the reports of those manufacturers, I sent some parcels of straw into Hertfordshire, and got back, in the course of five days, _fifteen specimens of plat_. These I sent to the Society of Arts on the 3d of April; and I here insert a copy of the letter which accompanied them.

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.

KENSINGTON, April 3, 1823.

SIR,--With this letter I send you sixteen specimens of plat, and also eight parcels of straw, in order to show the sorts that the plat is made out of. The numbers of the plat correspond with those of the straw; but each parcel of straw has two numbers attached to it, except in the case of the first number, which is the _wheat straw_. Of each kind of straw a parcel of the _stoutest_ and a parcel of the _smallest_ were sent to be platted; so that each parcel of the straw now sent, except that of the wheat, refers to _two of the pieces of plat_. For instance, 2 and 3 of the plat is of the sort of straw marked 2 and 3; 4 and 12 of the plat is of the sort of straw marked 4 and 12; and so on. These parcels of straw are sent in order that you may know the _kind_ of straw, or rather, of grass, from which the several pieces of plat have been made. This is very _material_; because it is by those parcels of straw that the _kinds of grass_ are to be known.

The piece of plat No. 16 is _American_; all the rest are from my straw. You will see, that 15 is the _finest plat of all_. No. 7 is from the _stout_ straws of the same _kind_ as No. 15. By looking at the parcel of straw Nos. 7 and 15, you will see what sort of grass this is. The next, in point of beauty and fineness combined, are the pieces Nos. 13 and 8; and by looking at the parcel of straw, Nos. 13 and 8, you will see what sort of grass that is. Next comes 10 and 5, which are very beautiful too; and the sort of grass, you will see, is the _common Bennet_. The wheat, you see, is too coarse; and the rest of the sorts are either _too hard_ or _too brittle_. I beg you to look at Nos. 10 and 5. Those appear to me to be the thing to supplant the Leghorn. The colour is good, the straws _work well_, they afford a great _variety of sizes_, and they come from the common _Bennet grass_, which grows all over the kingdom, which is cultivated in all our fields, which is in bloom in the fair month of June, which may be grown as fine or as coarse as we please, and ten acres of which would, I dare say, make ten thousand bonnets. However, 7 and 15, and 8 and 13, are very good; and they are to be got in every part of the kingdom.

As to _platters_, it is to be too childish to believe that they are not to be got, when I could send off these straws, and get back the plat, in the course of five days. Far _better work_ than this would have been obtained if I could have gone on the errand myself. What then will people not do, who regularly undertake the business for their livelihood?

I will, as soon as possible, send you an account of the manner in which I went to work with the grass. The card or plat, which I sent you some time ago, you will be so good as to give me back again some time; because I have now not a bit of the American plat left.

I am, Sir, your most humble and most obedient servant,

WM. COBBETT.

221. I should observe, that these written communications, of mine to the Society, _belong_, in fact, to it, and will be published in its PROCEEDINGS, a volume of which comes out every year; but, in this case, there would have been _a year lost_ to those who may act in consequence of these communications being made public. The grass is to be got, in great quantities and of the best sorts, only in _June_ and _July_; and the Society's volume does not come out till _December_. The Society has, therefore, given its consent to the making of the communications public through the means of this little work of mine.

222. Having shown what sort of plat could be produced from English grass-straw, I next communicated to the Society an account of the method which I pursued in the cutting and bleaching of the grass. The letter in which I did this I shall here insert a copy of, before I proceed further. In the original the paragraphs were _numbered_ from _one_ to _seventeen_: they are here marked by _letters_, in order to avoid confusion, the paragraphs of the work itself being marked by _numbers_.

TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS.

KENSINGTON, April 14, 1823.

A.--SIR,--Agreeably to your request, I now communicate to you a statement of those particulars which you wished to possess, relative to the specimens of straw and of plat which I have at different times sent to you for the inspection of the Society.

B.--That my statement may not come too abruptly upon those members of the Society who have not had an opportunity of witnessing the progress of this interesting inquiry, I will take a short review of the circumstances which led to the making of my experiments.

C.--In the month of June, 1821, a gentleman, a member of the Society, informed me, by letter, that a Miss WOODHOUSE, a farmer's daughter, of Weathersfield, in Connecticut, had transmitted to the Society a straw-bonnet of very fine materials and manufacture; that this bonnet (according to her account) was made from the straw of a sort of grass called _poa pratensis_; that it seemed to be unknown whether the same grass would grow in England; that it was desirable to ascertain whether this grass would grow in England; that, at all events, it was desirable to get from America some of the seed of this grass; and that, for this purpose, my informant, knowing that I had a son in America; addressed himself to me, it being his opinion that, if materials similar to those used by Miss WOODHOUSE could by any means be _grown in England_, the benefit to the nation must be considerable.

D.--In consequence of this application, I wrote to my son James, (then at New York,) directing him to do what he was able in order to cause success to the undertaking. On the receipt of my letter, in July, he went from New York to Weathersfield, (about a hundred and twenty miles;) saw Miss WOODHOUSE; made the necessary inquiries; obtained a specimen of the grass, and also of the plat, which other persons at Weathersfield, as well as Miss WOODHOUSE, were in the habit of making; and having acquired the necessary information as to cutting the grass and bleaching the straw, he transmitted to me an account of the matter; which account, together with his specimens of grass and plat, I received in the month of September.

E.--I was now, when I came to see the specimen of grass, convinced that Miss WOODHOUSE'S materials could be _grown in England_; a conviction which, if it had not been complete at once, would have been made complete immediately afterwards by the sight of a bunch of bonnet-straw _imported from Leghorn_, which straw was shown to me by the importer, and which I found to be that of two or three sorts of our common grass, and of oats, wheat, and rye.

F.--That the grass, or plants, could be _grown in England_ was, therefore, now certain, and indeed that they were, in point of commonness, next to the earth itself. But before the grass could, with propriety, be called materials for bonnet-making, there was the _bleaching_ to be performed; and it was by no means certain that this could be accomplished by means of an _English sun_, the difference between which and that of Italy or Connecticut was well known to be very great.

G.--My experiments have, I presume, completely removed this doubt. I think that the straw produced by me to the Society, and also some of the pieces of plat, are of a colour which no straw or plat can surpass. All that remains, therefore, is for me to give an account of the manner in which I cut and bleached the grass which I have submitted to the Society in the state of straw.

H.--First, as to the _season_ of the year, all the straw, except that of one sort of couch-grass, and the long coppice-grass, which two were got in Sussex, were got from grass cut in Hertfordshire on the 21st of June. A grass head-land, in a wheat-field, had been mowed during the forepart of the day, and in the afternoon I went and took a handful here and a handful there out of the swaths. When I had collected as much as I could well carry, I took it to my friend's house, and proceeded to prepare it for bleaching, according to the information sent me from America by my son; that is to say, I put my grass into a shallow tub, put boiling water upon it until it was covered by the water, let it remain in that state for ten minutes, then took it out, and laid it very thinly on a closely-mowed lawn in a garden. But I should observe, that, before I put the grass into the tub, I tied it up in small bundles, or sheaves, each bundle being about six inches through at the butt-end. This was necessary, in order to be able to take the grass, at the end of ten minutes, out of the water, without throwing it into a confused mixture as to tops and tails. Being tied up in little bundles, I could easily, with a prong, take it out of the hot water. The bundles were put into a large wicker basket, carried to the lawn in the garden, and there taken out, one by one, and laid in swaths as before-mentioned.

I.--It was laid _very thinly_; almost might I say, that no stalk of grass covered another. The swaths were _turned_ once a day. The bleaching was completed at the end of _seven days_ from time of scalding and laying out. June is a fine month. The grass was, as it happened, cut on the _longest day in the year_; and the weather was remarkably fine and clear. But the grass which I afterwards cut in Sussex, was cut in the first week in August; and as to the weather my journal speaks thus:--

August, 1822.

2d.--Thunder and rain.--_Began cutting grass._
3d.--Beautiful day.
4th.--Fine day.
5th.--Cloudy day--_Began scalding grass, and laying it out._
6th.--Cloudy greater part of the day.
7th.--Same weather.
8th.--Cloudy and rather misty.--_Finished cutting grass._
9th.--Dry but cloudy.
10th.--Very close and hot.--_Packed up part of the grass._
11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th.--Same weather.
15th.--Hot and clear.--_Finished packing the grass._

K.--The grass cut in Sussex was as _well bleached_ as that cut in Hertfordshire; so that it is evident that we never can have a summer that will not afford sun sufficient for this business.

L.--The part of the straw used for platting; that part of the stalk which is _above the upper joint_; that part which is between the _upper joint_ and the seed-branches. This part is taken out, and the rest of the straw thrown away. But the _whole plant must be cut and bleached_; because, if you were to take off, _when green_, the part above described, that part would wither up next to nothing. This part must die in company with the whole plants, and be separated from the other parts after the bleaching has been performed.

M.--The time of cutting must vary with the seasons, the situation, and the sort of grass. The grass which I got in Hertfordshire, than which nothing can, I think, be more beautiful, was, when cut, generally in _bloom_; just in bloom. The _wheat_ was in full bloom; so that a good time for getting grass may be considered to be that when the _wheat is in bloom_. When I cut the grass in Sussex, the _wheat was ripe_, for reaping had begun; but that grass is of a very backward sort, and, besides, grew in the _shade_ amongst coppice-wood and under trees, which stood pretty thick.

N.--As to the sorts of grass, I have to observe generally, that in proportion as the colour of the grass is _deep_; that is to say, getting further from the _yellow_, and nearer to the _blue_, it is of a deep and _dead yellow_ when it becomes straw. Those kinds of grass are best which are, in point of colour, nearest to that of wheat, which is a fresh pale green. Another thing is, the quality of the straw as to _pliancy_ and _toughness_. Experience must be our guide here. I had not time to make a large collection of sorts; but those which I have sent to you contain three sorts which are proved to be good. In my letter of the 3d instant I sent you _sixteen_ pieces of plat and _eight_ bunches of straw, having the seed heads on, in order to show the sorts of grass. The sixteenth piece of plat was American. The first piece was from _wheat_ cut and bleached by me; the rest from _grass_ cut and bleached by me. I will here, for fear of mistake, give a list of the names of the several sorts of grass, the straw of which was sent with my letter of the 3d instant, referring to the numbers, as placed on the plat and on the bunches of straw.

PIECES BUNCHES SORTS
OF PLAT. OF STRAW. OF GRASS.

No 1.-- No. 1. --Wheat.

2.} { Melica Caerulea; or, Purple Melica
3.} 2 and 3 { Grass.

4.} { Agrostis Stolonifera; or, Fiorin Grass;
12.} 4 and 12 { that is to say, one sort of Couch-grass.

5.}
10.} 5 and 10 Lolium Perenne; or Ray-grass.

6.} { Avena Flavescens; or, Yellow Oat
11.} 6 and 11 { grass.

7.} { Cynosurus Cristatus; or Crested
15.} 7 and 15 { Dog's-tail grass.

8.} { Anthoxanthum Odoratum; or, Sweet
13.} 8 and 13 { scented Vernal grass.

9.} { Agrostis Canina; or, Brown Bent
14.} 9 and 14 { grass.

O.--These names are those given at the Botanical Garden _at Kew_. But the same English names are not in the country given to these sorts of grass. The _Fiorin grass_, the _Yellow Oat-grass_, and the _Brown-Bent_, are all called _couch-grass_; except that the latter is, in Sussex, called _Red Robin_. It is the native grass of the _plains_ of Long Island; and they call it _Red Top_. The _Ray-grass_ is the common field grass, which is, all over the kingdom, sown with clover. The farmers, in a great part of the kingdom, call it _Bent_, or _Bennett_, grass; and sometimes it is galled _Darnel-grass_. The _Crested Dog's-tail_ goes, in Sussex, by the name of _Hendonbent_; for what reason I know not. The _sweet-scented Vernal-grass_ I have never, amongst the farmers, heard any name for. Miss WOODHOUSE'S grass appears, from the _plants_ that I saw in the Adelphi, to be one of the sorts of Couch-grass. Indeed, I am sure that it is a Couch-grass, if the plants I there saw came from her seed. My son, who went into Connecticut, who saw the grass growing, and who sent me home a specimen of it, is now in England: he was with me when I cut the grass in Sussex; and he says that Miss WOODHOUSE'S was a Couch-grass. However, it is impossible to look at the specimens of straw and of plat which I have sent you, without being convinced that there is no want of the raw material in England. I was, after my first hearing of the subject, very soon convinced that the grass grew in England; but I had great doubts as to the capacity of our _sun_. Those doubts my own experiments have completely removed; but then I was not aware of the great effect of the _scalding_, of which, by the way, Miss WOODHOUSE had said nothing, and the knowledge of which we owe entirely to my son James' journey into Connecticut.

P.--Having thus given you an account of the time and manner of cutting the grass, of the mode of cutting and bleaching; having given you the best account I am able, as to the sorts of grass to be employed in this business; and having, in my former communications, given you specimens of the plat wrought from the several sorts of straw, I might here close my letter; but as it may be useful to speak of _the expense_ of cutting and bleaching, I shall trouble you with a few words relating to it. If there were a field of _Ray-grass_, or of _Crested Dog's-tail_, or any other good sort, and nothing else growing with it, the expense of _cutting_ would be very little indeed, seeing that the _scythe_ or _reap-hook_ would do the business at a great rate. Doubtless there _will be_ such fields; but even if the grass have to be cut by the handful, my opinion is, that the expense of cutting and bleaching would not exceed _fourpence_ for straw enough to make a large bonnet. I should be willing to contract to supply straw, at this rate, for half a million of bonnets. The _scalding_ must constitute a considerable part of the expense; because there must be _fresh water_ for every parcel of grass that you put in the tub. When water has scalded one parcel of cold grass, it will not scald another parcel. Besides, the scalding draws out the _sweet matter_ of the grass, and makes the water the colour of that horrible stuff called London porter. It would be very good, by-the-by, to give to pigs. Many people give _hay-tea_ to pigs and calves; and this is _grass-tea_. To scald a large quantity, therefore would require means not usually at hand, and the scalding is an essential part of the business. Perhaps, in a large and convenient farm-house, with a good brewing copper, good fuel and water handy, four or five women might scald a wagon load in a day; and a wagon would, I think, carry straw enough (in the rough) to furnish the means of making a thousand bonnets. However, the scalding _might_ take place _in the field itself_, by means of a portable boiler, especially if water were at hand; and perhaps it would be better to carry the water to the field than to carry the grass to the farm-house, for there must be _ground to lay it out upon the moment it has been scalded_, and no ground can be so proper as the newly-mowed ground where the grass has stood. The _space_, too, must be _large_, for any considerable quantity of grass. As to all these things, however, the best and cheapest methods will soon be discovered when people set about the work with a view to profit.

Q.--The Society will want nothing from me, nor from any-body else, to convince it of the importance of this matter; but I cannot, in concluding these communications to you, Sir, refrain from making an observation or two on the consequences likely to arise out of these inquiries. The manufacture is alone of considerable magnitude. Not less than about _five millions_ of persons in this kingdom have a dress which consists partly of manufactured straw; and a large part, and all the most expensive part, of the articles thus used, now come from abroad. In cases where you can get from abroad any article at _less expense than you can get it at home_, the wisdom of fabricating that article at home may be doubted. But, in this case, you get the raw material by labour performed at home, and the cost of that labour is not nearly so great as would be the cost of the mere carriage of the straw from a foreign country to this. If our own people had all plenty of employment, and that too more profitable to them and to the country than the turning of a part of our own grass into articles of dress, then it would be advisable still to import Leghorn bonnets; but the facts being the reverse, it is clear, that whatever money, or money's worth things, be sent out of the country, in exchange for Leghorn bonnets, is, while we have the raw material here for next to nothing, just so much thrown away. The Italians, it may be said, take some of our manufactures in exchange; and let us suppose, for the purpose of illustration, that they take cloth from Yorkshire. Stop the exchange between Leghorn and Yorkshire, and, does Yorkshire _lose part of its custom_? No: for though those who make the bonnets out of English grass, prevent the Leghorners from buying Yorkshire cloth, they, with the money which they now get, instead of its being got by the Leghorners, buy the Yorkshire cloth themselves; and they wear this cloth too, instead of its being worn by the people of Italy; ay, Sir, and many, now in rags, will be well clad, if the laudable object of the Society be effected. Besides this, however, why should we not _export_ the articles of this manufacture? To America we certainly should; and I should not be at all surprised if we were to export them to Leghorn itself.

R.--Notwithstanding all this, however, if the manufacture were of a description to require, in order to give it success, the _collecting of the manufacturers together in great numbers_, I should, however great the wealth that it might promise, never have done any thing to promote its establishment. The contrary is happily the case: here all is not only performed _by hand_, but by hand _singly_, without any combination of hands. Here there is no power of machinery or of chemistry wanted. All is performed out in the open fields, or sitting in the cottage. There wants no coal mines and no rivers to assist; no water-powers nor powers of fire. No part of the kingdom is unfit for the business. Every-where there are grass, water, sun, and women and children's fingers; and these are all that are wanted. But, the great thing of all is this; that, to obtain the materials for the making of this article of dress, at once so gay, so useful, and in some cases so expensive, there requires not _a penny of capital_. Many of the labourers now make their own straw hats to wear in summer. Poor rotten things, made out of straw of ripened grain. With what satisfaction will they learn that straw, twenty times as durable, to say nothing of the beauty, is to be got from every hedge? In short when the people are well and clearly informed of the facts, which I have through you, Sir, had the honour to lay before the Society, it is next to impossible that the manufacture should not become general throughout the country. In every labourer's house a pot of water can be boiled. What labourer's wife cannot, in the summer months, find time to cut and bleach grass enough to give her and her children work for a part of the winter? There is no necessity for all to be _platters_. Some may cut and bleach only. Others may prepare the straw, as mentioned in paragraph L. of this letter. And doubtless, as the farmers in Hertfordshire now sell their straw to the platters, grass collectors and bleachers and preparers would do the same. So that there is scarcely any country labourer's family that might not derive some advantage from this discovery; and, while I am convinced that this consideration has been by no means over-looked by the Society, it has been, I assure you, the great consideration of all with,

Sir, your most obedient and
most humble Servant,
WM. COBBETT.

223. In the last edition, this closing part of the work, relative to the straw plat, was not presented to the public as a thing which admitted of no alteration; but, on the contrary, it was presented to the public with the following concluding remark: "In conclusion I have to observe, that I by no means send forth this essay as containing opinions and instructions that are to undergo no alteration. I am, indeed, endeavouring to teach others; but I am myself only a learner. Experience will, doubtless, make me much more perfect in a knowledge of the several parts of the subject; and the fruit of this experience I shall be careful to communicate to the public." I now proceed to make good this promise. Experience has proved that very beautiful and very fine plat can be made of the straw of divers kinds of _grass_. But the most ample experience has also proved to us that it is to the straw of _wheat_, that we are to look for a manufacture to supplant the Leghorn. This was mentioned as a strong suspicion in my former edition of this work. And I urged my readers to sow wheat for the purpose. The fact is now proved beyond all contradiction, that the straw of wheat or rye, but particularly of wheat, is the straw for this purpose. _Finer_ plat may be made from the straw of grass than can possibly be made from the straw of wheat or rye: but the grass plat is, all of it, more or less _brittle_; and none of it has the beautiful and uniform colour of the straw of wheat. Since the last edition of this work, I have received packets of the straw _from Tuscany_, all of _wheat_; and, indeed, I am _convinced_ that no other straw is any-thing like so well calculated for the purpose. Wheat straw bleaches better than any other. It has that fine, pale, golden colour which no other straw has; it is much more simple, more pliant than any other straw; and, in short, this is the material. I did not urge in vain. A good quantity of wheat was sowed for this purpose. A great deal of it has been well harvested; and I have the pleasure to know that several hundreds of persons are now employed in the platting of straw. One more year; one more crop of wheat; and another Leghorn bonnet will never be imported in England. Some great errors have been committed in the sowing of the wheat, and in the cutting of it. I shall now, therefore, availing myself of the experience which I have gained, offer to the public some observations on the _sort of wheat_ to be sowed for this purpose; on the _season_ for sowing; on the _land_ to be used for the purpose; on the _quantity of seed_, and the _manner_ of sowing: on the _season_ for cutting; on the manner of _cutting_, _bleaching_, and _housing_; on the _platting_; on the _knitting_, and on the _pressing_.

224. The SORT OF WHEAT. The Leghorn plat is all made of the straw of the spring wheat. This spring wheat is so called by us, because it is sowed in the spring, at the same time that barley is sowed. The botanical name of it is TRITICUM AESTIVUM. It is a small-grained bearded wheat. It has very fine straw; but experience has convinced me, that the little brown-grained winter wheat is just as good for the purpose. In short, any wheat will do. I have now in my possession specimens of plat made of both winter and spring wheat, and I see no difference at all. I am decidedly of opinion that the winter wheat is as good as the spring wheat for the purpose. I have plat, and I have straw both now before me, and the above is the result of my experience.

225. THE LAND PROPER FOR THE GROWING OF WHEAT. The object is to have the straw as small as we can get it. The land must not, therefore, be too rich; yet it ought not to be _very poor_. If it be, you get the straw of no length. I saw an acre this year, as beautiful as possible, sowed upon a light loam, which bore last year a fine crop of potatoes. The land ought to be perfectly clean, at any rate; so that, when the crop is taken off, the wheat straw may not be mixed with weeds and grass.

226. SEASON FOR SOWING. This will be more conveniently stated in paragraph 228.

227. QUANTITY OF SEED AND MANNER OF SOWING. When first this subject was started in 1821, I said, in the Register, that I would engage to grow as fine straw in England as the Italians could grow. I recommended then, as a first guess, _fifteen_ bushels of wheat to the acre. Since that, reflection told me that that was not quite enough. I therefore recommended _twenty_ bushels to the acre. Upon the beautiful acre which I have mentioned above, eighteen bushels, I am told, were sowed; fine and beautiful as it was, I think it would have been better if it had had twenty bushels; twenty bushels, therefore, is what I recommend. You must sow broad cast, of course, and you must take great pains to cover the seed well. It must be a good even-handed seedsman, and there must be very nice covering.

228. SEASON FOR CUTTING. Now, mind, it is fit to cut in just about one week _after the bloom has dropped_. If you examine the ear at that time, you will find the grain just beginning to be formed, and that is precisely the time to cut the wheat: The straw has then got its full substance in it. But I must now point out a very material thing. It is by no means desirable to have _all_ your wheat _fit to cut at the same time_. It is a great misfortune, indeed, so to have it. If fit to cut altogether, it ought to be cut all at the same time; for supposing you to have an acre, it will require a fortnight or three weeks to cut it and bleach it, unless you have a very great number of hands, and very great vessels to prepare water in. Therefore, if I were to have an acre of wheat for this, purpose, and were to sow all spring wheat, I would sow a twelfth part of the acre every week from the first week in March to the last week in May. If I relied partly upon winter wheat, I would sow some every month, from the latter end of September to March. If I employed the two sorts of wheat, or indeed if I employed only the spring wheat, the TRITICUM AESTIVUM, I should have some wheat fit to cut in June, and some not fit to cut till September. I should be sure to have a fair chance as to the weather. And, in short, it would be next to impossible for me to fail of securing a considerable part of my crop. I beg the reader's particular attention to the contents of this paragraph.

229. MANNER OF CUTTING THE WHEAT. It is cut by a little reap-hook, close to the ground as possible. It is then tied in little sheaves, with two pieces of string, one near the butt, and the other about half-way up. This little bundle or sheaf ought to be six inches through at the butt, and no more. It ought not to be tied too tightly, lest the scalding should not be perfect.