34 



JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



woad-indigo was found, in lumps and powder, the sepulture being probably 

 that of a dyer. 



So completely has Woad as a dye been superseded by indigo in this 

 country that its blue colour is now more or less legendary. Although 

 still grown for the purpose of the dyer in various parts of Lincolnshire 

 and Cambridgeshire,* no one connected with the industry could give me 

 the slightest hint as to how the blue colour in it could be demonstrated. 



Fig. 1.— Thuringian "Woad Mill of the Eighteenth Century. 



This engraving shows a field of Woad, with three figures kneeling in the 

 distance gathering the Woad leaves. In the centre is a large millstone 

 turned by a pair of horses, with the Woad- man raking the leaves under the 

 millstone. Just behind are four racks or ranges ; upon these the balls of 

 Woad into which the crushed pulp is made are placed to dry. A heap of 

 gathered Woad leaves is seen just behind these to the left. In the front of 

 the picture, on the left, is shown a heap of crushed Woad and W^oad 

 balls, both in a basket and lying beside it. In the right-hand corner a Woad- 

 spud is shown, having the same shaped blade, but with a different handle, 

 to that in use in Cambridgeshire in the present day.— From Schreber's 

 " Beschreibung des Waidtes," 1752. 



One of the largest growers is the lineal descendant of a Woad-gro\\ang 



family of over one hundred years' standing, yet neither he nor any of his 



employes was able to help me in this particular. 



The modern books of botany are silent on this point, while the 



dictionaries and encyclopaedias are content with copying their predecessors 



* Darwin, F., and Meldola, R., Nature, Nov. 12, 1896, p. 3G. 



