XIII INDIGO 253 



pack them in closely pressed bales. For, if this were done, How to 

 much waste would be prevented as the whole of the heart- re^rns! 

 wood, including the chippings, could be worked up, and thus 

 add considerably to the quantity obtainable from a single 

 tree. 



In Jamaica quite a large business has been established in 

 digging and exporting logwood roots left in the ground 

 when the trees were felled during the last twenty or thirty 

 years. Some idea may be formed of the im.portance of log- The Engli.sh 

 wood as a dye when it is remembered that the imports into " 

 England alone are valued at more than a quarter of a million 

 sterling for a single year. 



Indigo. Indigofera Anilj and /. tinctoria. 



The blue substance called indigo is obtained from several 

 species of Indigofera, and the cultivation of indigo plants 

 and the preparation of the dye were practised in India from An ancient 

 the earliest times. The dye was known to the Romans as ^^' 

 i?idiciim, and the distances it had to be brought in the days 

 when such journeys were difficult and dangerous rendered 

 it very costly, and caused its origin to be shrouded in mystery. 

 Some of the early writers describe the dye as a mineral, whilst History of 

 others supposed it to be a vegetable exudation r'ixed with ^ ^ ^'^* 

 mud. In the fifteenth century the Dutch brought the dye 

 from the East in considerable quantities ; but, as it interfered 

 with the manufacture of woad — a blue dye obtained from Woad. 

 Isatis tinctoria, a plant cultivated in European countries — 

 the use of indigo was forbidden by several governments. In 

 Germany, a law was passed in 1654 prohibiting the use of The devil's 

 indigo and stigmatising it as devil's dye ; and, in Nuremberg, ^^^' 

 the magistrates compelled the dyers to take an oath once a 

 year not to use indigo. In France, from 1598 until 1737 the 

 use of the dye was forbidden in order to protect the woad 

 growers, so that it was not until about the middle of the last 

 century that dyers were permitted to use what substances 



