406 THE TEAZLE CROP. 



Teazle," which stands alone as the only instance of a vege- 

 table substance being used for mechanical purposes in the 

 state in which it is naturally produced. 1 This, which 

 appears to be a domesticated variety of the common wild 

 teazle Dipsacus sylvestris of our waste places, is a 

 biennial plant, with a fleshy, tapering root, and a coarse, 

 angular, prickly, leafy stem, growing to the height of from 

 4 to 6 feet. The leaves are oblong, serrated, prickly at 

 the back, and joined at the base with a kind of cup, in 

 which the moisture arising from the dews or the rain is 

 collected and retained. The flowers, which are of a 

 whitish colour, with pale purple anthers, are arranged in 

 a long blunt head, bristling on all sides with stiff, hard, 

 hooked bracts. 



The teazle requires for its healthy development a soil 

 containing a large proportion of clay; its cultivation 

 therefore is confined to the strong loams and clays, and 

 is, moreover, limited in its range to the very few districts 

 in the country which furnish a market for the produce of 

 the crop. These exist in Essex, Wilts, Somerset, Glouces- 

 tershire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, and to these 

 counties the cultivation is principally confined. As it is 

 a crop widely different in its mode of cultivation from 

 our ordinary farm crops, it is usually met with being 

 carried on by small farmers or speculators, the trouble 

 and labour required and the risks to be encountered being 

 too great for ordinary farmers to be willing to incur. 

 The soil selected should be strong, deep, and free from 

 stagnant water; land newly broken up from grass gene- 

 rally gives the largest returns, although, at the same time, 

 it is not desirable that the soil should be in too high con- 

 dition, as the plants have a tendency to become too herba- 



1 Perhaps another instance may exist in the Dutch rush or shave-grass 

 (Kqiusetum hyemale), which is used in its natural state fur finishing off fine 

 carvings in wood, or plaster casts. 



