290 CURIOUS OR USEFUL PLANTS. 



logwood tree was first cultivated in Britain by Mr. P. Miller, in 

 1 739 *, who says, u there are some of these plants now in Eng- 

 land which are upwards of six feet high, and as thriving as those in 

 their native soilt ; but this observation will not apply to the pre- 

 sent time, for we have searched in vain for this plant through most 

 of the principal garden stoves in the neighbourhood of London. 



The wood of this tree is of a solid texture, and of a dark red 

 colour ; it is imported into Europe principally as a dying drug, cut 

 into junks or logs of about three feet in length ; of these pieces, 

 the largest and thickest are preferred, as being of the deepest co- 

 lour. This wood has a sweetish subastringent taste, and no re- 

 markable smell ; it gives a purplish red tincture both to watery and 

 spirituous infusions ; but is chiefly used, and in great quantities, 

 for dyeing purple, and especially black colours. All the colours, 

 however, which can be prepared from it, are of a fading nature ; 

 and cannot by any art be made equally durable with those pre- 

 pared from some other materials. Black, though not altogether 

 a fixed colour, is the most durable of the whole. Dr. Lewis 

 recommends it as an ingredient in making ink. u In dyeing 

 cloth," says he, " vitriol and galls, in whatever proportions they 

 are used, produce only browns of different shades : I have often 

 been surprised that with these capital materials of the black dye, I 

 never could obtain any true blackness in white cloth, and attri- 

 buted the failure to some unheeded mismanagement in the process, 

 till I found it to be a known fact among the dyers. Logwood is the 

 material which adds blackness to the vitriol and gall brown ; and 

 this black dye, though not of the most durable kind, is the most 

 common. On blue cloth a good black may be dyed by vitriol and 

 galls alone; but even here an addition of logwood contributes not 

 a little to improve the colour." Mr. Delaval, however, in his 

 Essay on Colours, informs us, that with [an infusion of galls and 

 iron filings, he not only made an exceeding black and durable ink, 

 but also dyed linen cloth of a very deep black. 



{Lewis. Woodville, IVildenow. 



* Hort. Kew. 



t Dictionary abridged, sixth edition. 



