Japan occupies a unique position in the cultivation and production of straws for plaitting. The soil is extremely fertile, and the geological condition of the country is volcanic. The straws when grown attain to a great size of tube, even as much as 1/3 of an inch in diameter, and plaits have been made of Japanese straws, split only in one place, which when opened out form a splint an inch wide, making braids of only 4 or 5 ends, about 3 ins. in width. The volcanic nature of the country seems to have permeated the soil with some bleaching agent. Sulphur is usually a product of volcanic eruption, and although its fumes are deadly to the growth of cereals, straws grown on volcanic soil acquire a colour which is unobtainable elsewhere. And the colour of the Japanese straw is entirely unlike, and at the same time vastly better than, any other known variety. Its rapid growth also engenders a special lightness of weight, and although not tough as the Italian or British, it is sufficiently so for any plaitting purposes. In this case the preparation of straws for working is simply the drying and sorting. Cereals only have as yet been described, but two other vegetable products can almost claim by user to be classed as straws, as the straw hat making industry has adopted them in a very whole-hearted manner. One of the first vegetable plaits, other than those of actual straw, was made of fine splints of the wood of willow. This was sufficiently seasoned in plank, a finely planed surface obtained, and a planing cutter, with scoring knives set to the requisite width, was made to take a very thin shaving. This naturally produced the shaving in very narrow strips that were the _media_ from which 3 ends, 5 ends, 7 ends and 9 ends “Chip” were plaitted by hand. Also wider splints of willow shavings were used to make fancy patterns of plait, the number of which is legion. This branch of the industry emanated from Italy, and Saxony and the Black Forest subsequently did some business in chip plaits, but their shavings were not equal to the Italian, being more woolly and less glossy, and they enjoyed mainly a local success. About 1890 the Japanese began to make chip plaits, their wood was equal to the Italians, and their prices vastly lower, so that for some years, while the plait known as “3 ends Chip” monopolized the great bulk of the hat making requirements, Italy and Japan were keen competitors. As in the birthplace of chip plaits, so in Japan were subsequently made all kinds of fancy designs, which for some time nearly extinguished the Italian trade. The other vegetable fibre is hemp. This was first used by the Swiss in the manufacture of a machine made braid similar in appearance to the hand plaitted 9 or 7 end chips.