DR. C. B. PLOWRIGHT ON WOAD AS A BLUE DYE. 
143 
the Purification of Our Lady. After Lady Day, when the air is 
somewhat softer and milder, it is proper to sow it, and your end 
will be better answer’d if you sprinkle a little snow over it, and 
take care that you do not sow it too thick and after 
Whitsuntide you must weed all other herbs from it. After 
St. John's Day in the Beginning of Harvest it is ripe.” It is 
interesting to add that the wadmen of the present day say that, 
“no Wad should be gathered after Martimas Day” (15th November.) 
Wedelius was essentially a chemist, and the main object of his 
book was to show that ammonia was produced from plants. He 
showed that ammonia was given off in large quantities during the 
couching of Woad, and he also argued on theoretical grounds that 
Woad contained sulphur, in both of which assertions he was 
correct. He tells us, as early as 1577 a decree was made at 
Frankfort to prevent the fraudulent and injurious substitution of 
indigo for Woad, and on 21st April, 1654, at Ratisbon, an edict 
was promulgated inflicting the penalty of confiscation against the 
further importation of indigo. The days of Woad as a dye were 
however rapidly drawing to an end, and yet, paradoxical as it may 
seem, the dyers of the “greater dye” could not do without it. 
At this time no other equally good method was known by which 
indigo could be dissolved and used for dyeing. We find Woad 
culture an important industry during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries ; accounts are to be found in the contemporary agricul- 
tural writers — Ellis,* Trowell,+ Miller , X and Young. § It was 
mostly carried on by itinerant “ wadmen,” who, with their families 
travelled from place to place, growing the Woad on newly broken 
up pasture land for which very high rents were paid. These gangs 
built their huts and wad mills with the sods from off the land, and 
were brought up to the industry from their childhood. They seldom 
stayed more than two or three seasons in the same spot, moving to 
a fresh location as soon as the soil became exhausted. Abroad the 
* Ellis Wm, ‘The Modern Husbandman,’ vol. iii. 1744, p. 117 — 118. 
f Trowell Samuel. ‘ Treatise on Husbandry and Gardening.’ London, 
8vo. 1739. 
J Miller P. ‘The Gardener’s Dictionary,’ 7th Edition, folio, 1759, 
article “ Woad.” 
§ Young Arthur. ‘General View of the Agriculture of Lincolnshire,’ 
8vo. 1799. 
