One must, therefore, come to the conclusion that the system of making hats from plait, as distinct from the weaving the hat in one piece, was introduced by Mary, Queen of Scots, to Scotland, and from thence the method came south, and for reasons which will be set out hereafter, settled itself in the regions of South Bedfordshire, North-east Hertfordshire, and East Buckinghamshire. CHAPTER II COMMERCIAL RISE AND GROWTH The history of a straw hat has thus been traced down to the latter half of the eighteenth century. Prior to this period all kinds of straws, grasses, and fibres of vegetables had been utilized in the operation, the only limit as to material being the growths peculiar to the locality in which hat-making was carried on, so one may see that, as each locality probably grew different kinds of fibres, the result of the finished hats was different. This difference early gave rise to local nomenclature, perhaps the first collective term was “Leghorn” (_circ._ 1650. Tomlinson’s Cyclopaedia, 1867). This now well-known variety of straw hat, woven first in braids and then cunningly put together in spiral sequence to the required shape, is not sewn overlapping, but with the braids laid edge to edge, and a fine tough straw or other fibre threaded through every other head on the impinging edges of the plait, and then drawn tight, so that the opposite heads fitting between and inside each other assumed the appearance of being woven in one piece, except that where the join took place, the thickness caused by the heads of the plait and the threading material, produced a ridge which, starting from the centre and running spirally to the edge of the brim, is one of the prominent characteristics of a “Leghorn.” This term, therefore, embodies, first, the place of origin; second, the material used; third, the method of using. If other local terms were thus early applied to straw productions, they have not, as far as the Continent of Europe is concerned, come down to modern times, all other names now in use (and they are legion) are the products of the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. All the materials used for plaitting up to about 1745 had been worked _whole_, that is, the fibre whether rush, grass or straw, was plaitted as it was grown, and consequently the hats of coarse weaving largely predominated; there being naturally a preponderance of the coarser parts of any vegetable growth.