SECT. XI.----rUNTS USEFUL IN DYEING.

119

ftiany interesting: and useful experiments, I trust I shall stand BXWMecr,■ft enter more fully into the nature of it than I have found it neces-sary to do in some of the former sections.

The following list of plants, which is given as containing colours ofdifferent kinds, are the same as have heen so considered for manyyears past: for, latterly, little has been added to our stock of know-ledge on this head. It may however be proper to observe, that a great"limber of vegetables still contain this principle in a superior degree,and only want :he proper attention paid to the abstracting it.

Most of our dyeing drugs are from abroad; and even the culture°f madder, which was once so much grown by our fanners, is now lostto us, to the great advantage of the Dutch, who supply our markets.»ut there is no reason why the agriculturist, or the artisan, shouldbe so much beholden to a neighbouring nation, as to pay them enormousprices for articles which can be so readily raised at home; and, accord-"ig to the general report of the consumers, managed in a way farSuperior to what it generally is when imported.

Let the botanical student therefore pay attention to this particu-lar ; for it is a wide field, in which great advantages may be reaped,e Hher in this country or in any other part of the world where he mayhereafter become an inhabitant.

The art of dyeing, generally considered, is kept so great a secret,'hat few persons have had the opportunity of making experiments. Theextracting colours from their primitive basis is a chemical operation,and cannot be expected in this place; but as some persons may be in-clined to ascertain thesepropertics of vegetables, 1 shall go just so far'nto the subject as to give an idea of the modes generally used ; and tos, ate the principles on which the colouring property is fixed when ap-plied to the purposes of dyeing cloth.

In the article Madder, page 32, I mentioned having made an ex-,r act similar to (he Adrianople red. For which purpose, a sufficient1 u antity of the roots should be taken fresh out of the ground, washedc 'ean from the dirt, bruised in a mortar, and then boiled in rain-water''II the whole become tinged of a red colour, then put into a cloth andall the colouring matter pressed out. This should again be put into hot*ater in a clean glaiied earthen-pan, to which should be added a small1'iantity of water in which alum had been dissolved, and the whole,"tared up together; then immediately add a lump of soda or pot-ash,

■**ngm-