hat 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 o