170 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



the height of summer ; but may be gathered, so as to 

 serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be 

 needless to add that the largest and longest are best. 

 Decayed labourers, women, and children, make it their 

 business to procure and prepare them. As soon as they 

 are cut they must be flung into water, and kept there ; for 

 otherwise they will dry and 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 familiar even 

 to children ; and we have seen an old woman, stone-blind, 

 performing this business with great dispatch, 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 afterwards 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 Hamp- 

 shire 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 pro- 

 cured for four pence ; 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 wiU mix a litde 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 an 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. 



