192 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
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they must lie out on the grass to be bleached, and take the dew 
for some nights, and afterwards be dried in the sun. 
Some address is required in dipping these rushes in 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 sea-side, 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 one 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, burnt only three minutes short of an hour ; 
and a rush still of greater length has been known to burn one hour 
and a quarter. 
These rushes give a good clear light. Watch-lights (coated with 
tallow), it is true, shed a dismal one, “ darkness visible ;”’ but then 
the wick of those have two ribs of the rind, or peel, to support the 
pith, while the wick of the dipped rush has but one. The two ribs 
are intended to impede the progress of the flame and make the 
candle last. 
In a pound of dry rushes, avoirdupois, which I caused to be 
weighed and numbered, we found upwards of one thousand six 
hundred individuals. Now suppose each of these burns, one with 
another, only half an hour, then a poor man will purchase eight 
hundred hours of light, a time exceeding thirty-three entire days, 
for three shillings. According to this account each rush, before 
dipping, costs 34; of a farthing, and ;4 afterwards. Thus a poor 
family will enjoy five and a half hours of comfortable light for a 
farthing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that one 
pound and a half of rushes completely supplies his family the 
year round, since working people burn no candles in the long days, 
because they rise and go to bed by daylight. 
Little farmers use rushes much in the short days both morning 
and evening, in the dairy and kitchen; but the very poor, who are 
