ts_. 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. Up