INDIGO 



253 



The plant from which the blue colouring matter called 

 indigo is obtained is a small shrub which grows between four 

 and six feet high ; its stem is about a quarter of an inch 

 thick. It has slender spreading branches and its leaves 

 resemble those of the acacia, that is to say, they consist of 

 several leaflets arranged in opposite pairs along the leaf- 



INDIGO. HAND BEATING 



stalk. Its flowers are pinkish in colour, and they grow along 

 a stalk just in the same way as the flowers of currant bushes do. 

 The seeds are contained in dark-brown pods, eight or ten to 

 a pod. 



There is nothing at all in the appearance of the plant to 

 suggest blue dye, yet on an indigo plantation in the manu- 

 facturing season everybody and everything is stained blue. 



Though a shrub, the indigo plant is usually grown from 

 seed every year, and before the seed is sown, the ground is 

 very carefully prepared ; after several ploughings, women and 



