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.
230. MANNER OF BLEACHING. The little sheaves mentioned in the last
paragraph are carried to a brewing mash, vat, or other tub. You must not
put them into the tub in too large a quantity, lest the water get chilled
before it get to the bottom. Pour on scalding water till you cover the
whole of the little sheaves, and let the water be a foot above the top
sheaves. When the sheaves have remained thus a full quarter of an hour,
take them out with a prong, lay them in a clothes-basket, or upon a
hurdle, and carry them to the ground where the bleaching is to be
finished. This should be, if possible, a piece of grass land, where the
grass is very short. Take the sheaves, and lay some of them along in a
row; untie them, and lay the straw along in that row as thin as it can
possibly be laid. If it were possible, no one straw ought to have another
lying upon it, or across it. If the sun be clear, it will require to lie
twenty-four hours thus, then to be turned, and lie twenty-four hours on
the other side. If the sun be not very clear, it must lie longer. But the
numerous sowings which I have mentioned will afford you so many chances,
so many opportunities of having fine weather, that the risk about weather
would necessarily be very small. If wet weather should come, and if your
straw remain out in it any length of time, it will be spoiled; but,
according to the mode of sowing above pointed out, you really could stand
very little chance of losing straw by bad weather. If you had some straw
out bleaching, and the weather were to appear suddenly to be about to
change, the quantity that you would have out would not be large enough to
prevent you from putting it under cover, and keeping it there till the
weather changed.
231. HOUSING THE STRAW. When your straw is nicely bleached, gather it up,
and with the same string that you used to tie it when green, tie it up
again into little sheaves. Put it by in some room where there is no
_damp_, and where mice and rats are not suffered to inhabit. Here it is
always ready for use, and it will keep, I dare say, four or five years
very well.
232. THE PLATTING. This is now so well understood that nothing need be
said about the manner of doing the work. But much might be said about the
measures to be pursued by land-owners, by parish officers, by farmers, and
more especially by gentlemen and ladies of sense, public spirit, and
benevolence of disposition. The thing will be done; the manufacture will
spread itself all over this kingdom; but the exertions of those whom I
have here pointed out might hasten the period of its being brought to
perfection. And I beg such gentlemen and ladies to reflect on the vast
importance of such manufacture, which it is impossible to cause to produce
any-thing but good. One of the great misfortunes of England at this day
is, that the land has had _taken away from it those employments for its
women and children which were so necessary to the well-being of the
agricultural labourer_. The spinning, the carding, the reeling, the
knitting; these have been all taken away from the land, and given to the
Lords of the Loom, the haughty lords of bands of abject slaves. But let
the landholder mark how the change has operated to produce his ruin. He
must have the labouring MAN and the labouring BOY; but, alas! he cannot
have these, without having the man's wife, and the boy's mother, and
little sisters and brothers. Even Nature herself says, that he shall have
the wife and little children, or that he shall not have the man and the
boy. But the Lords of the Loom, the crabbed-voiced, hard-favoured,
hard-hearted, puffed-up, insolent, savage and bloody wretches of the North
have, assisted by a blind and greedy Government, taken all the employment
away from the agricultural women and children. This manufacture of Straw
will form one little article of employment for these persons. It sets at
defiance all the hatching and scheming of all the tyrannical wretches who
cause the poor little creatures to die in their factories, heated to
eighty-four degrees. There will need no inventions of WATT; none of your
horse powers, nor water powers; no murdering of one set of wretches in the
coal mines, to bring up the means of murdering another set of wretches in
the factories, by the heat produced from those coals; none of these are
wanted to carry on this manufactory. It wants no _combination_ laws; none
of the inventions of the hard-hearted wretches of the North.
233. THE KNITTING. Upon this subject, I have only to congratulate my
readers that there are great numbers of English women who can now knit,
plat together, better than those famous Jewesses of whom we were told.
234. THE PRESSING. Bonnets and hats are pressed after they are made. I am
told that a proper press costs pretty nearly a hundred pounds; but, then,
that it will do prodigious deal of business. I would recommend to our
friends in the country to teach as many children as they can to make the
plat. The plat will be knitted in London, and in other considerable towns,
by persons to whom it will be sold. It appears to me, at least, that this
will be the course that the thing will take. However, we must leave this
to time; and here I conclude my observations upon a subject which is
deeply interesting to myself, and which the public in general deem to be
of great importance.
235. POSTSCRIPT on _brewing_.--I think it right to say here, that, ever
since I published the instructions for brewing by copper and by wooden
utensils, the beer at _my own house_ has always been brewed precisely
agreeable to the instructions contained in this book; and I have to add,
that I never have had such good beer in my house in all my lifetime, as
since I have followed that mode of brewing. My table-beer, as well as my
ale, is always as clear as wine. I have had hundreds and hundreds of
quarters of malt brewed into beer in my house. My people could always make
it strong enough and sweet enough; but never, except by accident, could
they make it CLEAR. Now I never have any that is not clear. And yet my
utensils are all very small; and my brewers are sometimes one labouring
man, and sometimes another. A man wants showing how to brew the first
time. I should suppose that we use, in my house, about seven hundred
gallons of beer every year, taking both sorts together; and I can
positively assert, that there has not been one drop of bad beer, and
indeed none which has not been most excellent, in my house, during the
last two years, I think it is, since I began using the utensils, and in
the manner named in this book.
ICE-HOUSES.
236. First begging the reader to read again paragraph 149, I proceed here,
in compliance with numerous requests to that effect, to describe, as
clearly as I can, the manner of constructing the sort of Ice-houses
therein mentioned. In England, these receptacles of frozen water are,
generally, _under ground_, and always, if possible, under the _shade of
trees_, the opinion being, that the _main_ thing, if not the _only_ thing,
is to keep away _the heat_. The heat is to be kept away certainly; but
_moisture_ is the great enemy of _Ice_; and how is this to be kept away
either _under ground_, or under the shade of trees? Abundant experience
has proved, that no thickness of _wall_, that no cement of any kind, will
effectually resist _moisture_. Drops will, at times, be seen hanging on
the under side of an arch of any thickness, and made of any materials, if
it have earth over it, and even when it has the floor of a house over it;
and wherever the moisture enters, the ice will quickly melt.
237. Ice-houses should therefore be, in all their parts, _as dry_ as
possible: and they should be so constructed, and the ice so deposited in
them, as to ensure _the running away of the meltings_ as quickly as
possible, whenever such meltings come. Any-thing in way of drains or
gutters, is too slow in its effect; and therefore there must be something
that will not suffer the water proceeding from any melting, to remain an
instant.
238. In the first place, then, the ice-house should stand in a place quite
open to the _sun and air_; for whoever has travelled even but a few miles
(having eyes in his head) need not be told how long that part of a road
from which the sun and wind are excluded by trees, or hedges, or by
any-thing else, will remain wet, or at least damp, after the rest of the
road is even in a state to send up dust.
239. The next thing is to protect the ice against wet, or damp, from
_beneath_. It should, therefore, stand on some spot _from which water
would run in every direction_; and if the natural ground presents no such
spot, it is no very great job to _make it_.
240. Then come the _materials_ of which the house is to consist. These,
for the reasons before-mentioned, must not be bricks, stones, mortar, nor
earth; for these are all affected by the atmosphere; they will become
_damp_ at certain times, and _dampness_ is the great destroyer of ice. The
materials are _wood_ and _straw_. Wood will not do; for, though not liable
to become damp, it imbibes _heat_ fast enough; and, besides, it cannot be
so put together as to shut out air sufficiently. Straw is wholly free from
the quality of becoming damp, except from water actually put upon it; and
it can, at the same time, be placed on a roof, and on sides, to such a
degree of thickness as to exclude the air in a manner the most perfect.
The ice-house ought, therefore, to be made of _posts, plates, rafters,
laths, and straw_. The best form is the _circular_; and the house, when
made, appears as I have endeavoured to describe it in _Fig. 3_ of the
plate.
241. FIG. 1, _a_, is the centre of a circle, the diameter of which is ten
feet, and at this centre you put up a post to stand fifteen feet above the
level of the ground, which post ought to be about nine inches through at
the bottom, and not a great deal smaller at the top. Great care must be
taken that this post be _perfectly perpendicular_; for, if it be not, the
whole building will be awry.
242. _b b b_ are fifteen posts, nine feet high, and six inches through at
the bottom, without much tapering towards the top. These posts stand about
two feet apart, reckoning from centre of post to centre of post, which
leaves between each two a space of eighteen inches, _c c c c_ are
fifty-four posts, five feet high, and five inches through at the bottom,
without much tapering towards the top. These posts stand about two feet
apart, from centre of post to centre of post, which leaves between each
two a space of nineteen inches. The space between these two rows of posts
is four feet in width, and, as will be presently seen, is to contain _a
wall of straw_.
243. _e_ is a passage through this wall; _d_ is the outside door of the
passage; _f_ is the inside door; and the inner circle, of which _a_ is the
centre, is the place in which the ice is to be deposited.
244. Well, then, we have now got _the posts_ up; and, before we talk of
the _roof_ of the house, or of the _bed_ for the ice, it will be best to
speak about the making of the _wall_. It is to be made of _straw_,
wheat-straw, or rye-straw, with no rubbish in it, and made very smooth by
the hand as it is put in. You lay it _in very closely_ and very smoothly,
so that if the wall were cut across, as at _g g_, in FIG. 2 (which FIG.
2 represents _the whole building cut down through the middle_, omitting
the centre post,) the ends of the straws would present a compact face as
they do after a cut of a chaff-cutter. But there requires something _to
keep the straw from bulging out between the posts_. Little stakes as big
as your _wrist_ will answer this purpose. Drive them into the ground, and
fasten, at top, to the _plates_, of which I am now to speak. The plates
are pieces of wood which go all round both the circles, and are _nailed on
upon the tops of the posts_. Their main business is to receive and sustain
the _lower ends of the rafters_, as at _m m_ and _n n_ in FIG. 2. But to
the plates also the _stakes_ just mentioned must be fastened at top. Thus,
then, there will be this space of four feet wide, having, on each side of
it, a row of posts and stakes, not more than about six inches from each
other, to hold up, and to keep in its place, this wall of straw.
[Illustration: _Fig. 1_, _Fig. 2_, _Fig. 3_]