232 NATURAL HISTORY 
shrink, and the peel will not run. At first a person 
would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its 
peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, ° 
even rib from top to bottom that may support the 
pith ; but this, like other feats, soon becomes famil- 
iar even to children; and we have seen an old 
woman stone blind performing this business with 
great despatch, and seldom failing to strip them 
with the nicest regularity. When these junci are 
thus far prepared, they must lie out on the grass to 
be bleached, and take the dew for some nights, and 
afterward be dried in the sun. 
Some address is required in dipping these rushes 
in the scalding fat or grease; but this knack also 
is to be attained by practice. The careful wife of 
an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her 
fat for nothing, for she saves the scummings of her 
bacon-pot for this use ; and if the grease abounds 
with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate to the 
bottom by setting the scummings in a warm oven. 
Where hogs are not much in use, and especially 
by the seaside, the coarser animal oils will come 
very cheap. A pound of common grease may be 
procured for fourpence, and about six pounds of 
grease will dip a pound of rushes, and a pound of 
rushes may be bought for one shilling; so that a 
pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will 
cost three shillings. If men that keep bees will 
mix a little wax with the grease, it will give it a 
consistency, and render it more cleanly, and make 
the rushes burn longer: mutton suet would have ~ 
the same effect. 
A good rush, which measured in length two 
feet four inches and a half, being minuted, bu:ned 
