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 t