MATTING (from mat, AS. nomIta, from Lat. matte, mat). A general name for various coarse woven or plaited fibrous materials for covering the floors of rooms, passages, lobbies. etc., for door-mats, for hanging as screens, for packing furniture, or for packing heavy merchandise. _Matting is extensively manufactured from straw, bulrushes. grasses of several kinds, and the leaves of various palms, and forms an important article of commerce. Floor-matting, now so ex tensively employed as a cheap. cool, and cleanly substitute for carpeting. is woven from two en tirely different materials: Straw, made from a species of reed, or grass having calms 6 feet high, and the fibrous husk of the cocoanut palm, called coir. (See Com.) 31ost of the straw mat ting comes from China or Japan; the Bang° matting is made from a coarse straw, and the Bingo matting from a finer material, which is easier to manipulate, hut not so durable as the coarse straw. The loom employed is a most simple hand-machine, consisting merely of an upright bamboo framework, with cylindrical cross-pieces above and below, over which the warp runs, the woof being woven in without a shuttle. The warp threads are of hemp, oiled to make them smooth. The straw is woven while still wet and is then dried in the sun or over slow fires. Matting
is either made in sections of two to five yards, which are afterwards neatly joined together into a roll of 40 yards, or the fabric is all woven in one piece, in which case it is likely to be loose in texture. To remedy this the matting is loos ened and pulled down closer by coolies, while it is drying over a box containing a charcoal fire.
Tile yarn from which cocoa matting is woven is sometimes spun by machinery, but it is said that the hand-spun yarn is both cheaper and better. The yarn is twisted by being rolled in a peculiar manner in the hands, the work being done by natives during the rainy season. The yarn is first bleached and then sorted into colors. The process of weaving is an arduous one, and the looms are peculiarly constructed for the purpose and very strong. The value of the straw matting imported into the United States an nually from China, Japan. and India for ten years is as follows: 1S91, $1.489,093; /492, $1.637,473; 1893, $1,063,106; 1894, $1,874,977; 1895, $1,633,638; 1896, $2.777.417; 1897. $3,922. 003: 1898, $1.437,171; 1899, $2.051,690; 1900, $2.674,911. Consult History and Manufacture of Floor Coverings (New York, 1598).