163 
Some Minor Farm Crops. 
from packed and finished casks or bales, and this entails a 
certain amount of damage to the tobacco leaves which are then 
in a very brittle state, whilst it also does much damage to the 
casks and bales. 
It is to be hoped that for the benefit of tobacco-growing in 
this country some drastic alteration in the present Excise laws 
will be effected in the near future. 
A. J. Brandon. 
Redfields, 
Church Crookham, Hants. 
Y.— TEAZLES. 
The growth of teazles for the purpose of cloth-dressing is a 
little known phase of agricultural industry, although a fairly 
large trade is done wherever woollen cloths are woven. The 
wild teazle is a common plant of the English copses and hedges 
with a tall, rigid, prickly stem, bearing large, spreading, 
opposite leaves, and conspicuous oblong heads. The flowers, 
which appear in July, are of a purplish colour and they are 
subtended by long, stiff, upright bracts. The plant belongs to 
the genus Dipsacece, of which the scabious is also a member, 
and the teazle family is known as Dipsacus sylvestris. The 
difference between the wild teazle and the Fuller’s teazle ( D . 
Fullonum) is that in the commercial variety the bracts are 
hooked , and it is this quality which gives them their utility in 
raising the “ nap ” or “ pile ” of cloth. Fuller’s teazle is 
probably a cultivated form of the wild species, although the 
contrary opinion is held in Somerset, and the local growers 
say that the wild teazle is a degenerate form of the cultivated 
variety. 
Prior to the development of machine and power production 
in the woollen industry all cloth was dressed with teazles, but at 
the present time wire brushes are used for raising the “ nap ” on 
many varieties ; teazles being mainly used on very fine cloths, 
and also on some cloths on which the nap is raised while the 
cloth is in a wet condition. In the latter case teasles have an 
immense advantage, for the damp, by causing rust, spoils the 
points of the wire brushes. 
For the purpose of cloth-dressing the teazles are used in 
two ways. When they are sold by the growers they are graded 
in two or three sizes, i.e ., kings, the crown-heads of each plant, 
middlings , and buttons, i.e., the smallest heads. The buttons 
are fitted into small iron frames which are fixed on large 
rotating cylinders, and these pass over the face of the cloth to 
be dressed. The kings and middlings are cut and fixed in 
small wire devices in sets of three. In this form they make a 
continuous cylindrical brush of some five or six inches in 
Gr 2 
