USES OF THE TEASEL. 
39 
little attention seems given to the eradication of intrusive 
rubbish, and, consequently, after gathering the crop the 
soil is frequently in a very foul state, and from hence 
the chief injury to the land may arise, rather than from 
the teasel plant. Though this crop requires no manure, 
nor affords any to the soil, yet the removal of the earth 
so repeatedly by the hoe and spade becomes equivalent 
to a fallow : with us a wheat crop often succeeds the 
teasel, and I have observed in this case as good a return 
of that grain as is produced by the adjoining fields 
where teasels had not been grown. 
This plant seems to be known in many countries by 
a name expressive of its use. Old Gerard has recorded 
several of these names. Its old English name was the 
carding teasel; the Latin name, carduus veneris; the 
French call it chardon de foullon ; the Danes and 
Swedes, karde tidsel ; the Flemings, karden distel ; the 
Hollanders, kaarden ; Italy and Portugal, cardo ; the 
Spaniards, cardencha, &c. 
I believe that the teasel affords a solitary instance of 
a natural production being applied to mechanical pur- 
poses in the state in which it is produced.* It appears, 
from many attempts, that the object designed to be 
effected by the teasel cannot be supplied by any con- 
trivance — successive inventions having been abandoned 
as defective or injurious. The use of the teasel is to 
draw out the ends of the wool from the manufactured 
cloth, so as to bring a regular pile or nap upon the sur- 
face, free from twistings and knottings, and to comb 
off the coarse and loose parts of the wool. The head 
of the true teasel is composed of incorporated flowers, 
each separated by a long, rigid, chaffy substance, the 
terminating point of which is furnished with a fine hook. 
Many of these heads are fixed in a frame ; and with 
this the surface of the cloth is teased, or brushed, until 
all the ends are drawn out, the loose parts combed off, 
and the cloth ceases to yield impediments to the free 
* Equisetum hyemale, the Dutch rush, or shave grass, is yet used 
| in its natural state for finishing fine models in wood, and in removing 
| roughness in plaster casts. 
