CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 



preferred to old. The seed should be invariably steeped for 

 some time before planting, as germination will be hastened 

 by it. 



It is mostly grown on a flat surface, though it may be cul- 

 tivated in raised drills or beds. When the leaves have attain- 

 ed their full size, and before they have begun to change to 

 their pale colour, they are picked off by hand, and in this man- 

 ner several successive crops are obtained during the season. 

 When the plants have shot forth their flowering stems, the 

 land is ploughed and prepared for another kind of crop. 



The produce is mostly from about a ton to a ton and a half 

 of green leaves to the acre. To prepare it for the dyer it is 

 bruised by machinery, to express the watery part; it is after- 

 wards formed into balls and fermented re-ground and fer- 

 mented in vats, where it is evaporated into cakes in the man- 

 ner of indigo. The haulm is either burned for manure, or 

 carried to the barn-yard, and mixed with other straw and re- 

 fuse to be worked up and fermented. To save seed, let the 

 leaves remain on some of the plants the second year, and when 

 ripe in July or August, treat it like turnip seed. The mildew 

 and rust are the only diseases to which this plant is subject; 

 yet it sometimes suffers very much from the attacks of the fly, 

 and the ground obliged to be re-sown. The preparation of 

 this plant for the dyer, requires a minute care scarcely com- 

 patible with the regular business of the farm. 



III. WELD OR DYERS WEED. 



WELD is a native of the south of Europe, an imperfect bien- 

 nial, with small fusiform roots, and a leafy stem from one to 

 three feet in height London. It belongs to the mignonette 

 family Resedacex; and is sometimes found in earth brought 

 from a great depth, as the rubbish of coal-mines. The weld 

 affords a fine yellow dye for cotton, wool, silk, and other sub- 

 stances. Its culture may be considered the same as that of the 

 woad, only being a smaller plant it is not thinned out to so 

 great a distance; and it has this advantage for the farmer over 

 all other colouring plants, that it only requires to be taken up 

 and dried, when it is fit for the dyer. 



It is the most easily cultivated of all the dye-plants, of which 

 we have any knowledge. It grows on a great variety of soils; 

 but fertile loams produce the best crops. It is also cultivated 

 in the same manner as the clovers and common grasses; being 

 sometimes mixed with the clovers and grasses, and plucked up 



