THE MADDER CROP. 



MADDER is another of the dye plants which formerly 

 occupied a place as a regular farm crop in this country, 

 the cultivation of which has now altogether ceased the 

 home-grown madder having been unable to contend in 

 the markets with the produce of other countries possessing 

 a more congenial climate than our own. The plant itself, 

 and the peculiar colouring property it possesses, were 

 evidently known by the ancients', as, although the history 

 of all of our plants which were not cultivated as articles 

 of food is very obscure, there are many passages in the 

 different writers, both Greek and Roman, which refer to 

 madder and the uses to which it was applied. Diosco- 

 rides gives a clear description of the plant under the 

 name of " Erythrodanon," which is confirmed by Theo- 

 phrastus, in its principal characteristics. Pliny 1 tells us 

 distinctly that the erythrodanon was in his native tongue 

 called " Rubia," and that its roots were much valued for 

 giving a red dye to wool and leather. The remarkable 

 effect upon animal tissues produced by the consumption 

 of madder, 2 which was only noticed by physiologists in 



1 Nat. Hist., lib. xxiv. cap. 9. 



2 "In the above year (1736), however, a property of it was discovered, by 

 accident, as usual, which rendered it an object of more attention. John 

 JBelchier, an English surgeon, having dined with a cotton printer, observed 

 that the bones of the pork which was served up for dinner were red. As he 

 appeared surprised at this circumstance, his host assured him that the redness 

 was occasioned by the swine feeding on the bran and water in which the dyed 

 cotton cloth had been boiled, and which were coloured by the madder used in 

 the operation. Belchier, to whom this effect was quite new, convinced him- 

 self, by a series of experiments, that the red colour of the bones had arisen 

 from the madder employed in printing the cotton, and from no other cause ; 



