AP11IL.J MADDER. ]()7 



It may be said, that the correspondent in London 

 may he in the right. Very true ; hut will the 

 countryman believe it ? He thinks himself right, 

 and has no other proof that he is not so, but the 

 interested assertion of the man who buys it. Is it 

 not evident, that in such a case the cultivator will 

 be disgusted, and throw aside a business in which 

 he knows neither the market weight nor the mar- 

 ket price. If encouragement is designed to this 

 culture from any quarter, it should not be exclusive 

 of this circumstance : manufactories should be 

 creeled and established, in which the madder could 

 be prepared for any one at so much an hundred 

 weight, and that by persons not the least concerned 

 in purchasing. Then the cultivator would have a 

 commodity in his hands which he could sell in as 

 simple and fair a way as any other. If nothing 

 of this sort can be effected, all encouragement 

 should be for such a number of acres (and no. 

 less) as will answer the expence of a private manu- 

 facture, which would prevent persons being un- 

 guardedly drawn in, by premiums apparently con- 

 siderable, to cultivate a root which, when raised, is 

 in its sale absolutely at the mercy of the purchaser. 

 I am informed, that at present (1803) the largest 

 quantity of madder used in our manufactures, is 

 used without being powdered, as formerly, and that 

 it is saleable with common drying, without stove- 

 work ; but that common degree is open to much un- 

 certainty, so that the preceding remarks are not 



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