164 
Some Minor Farm Crops. 
length, and these brushes are fixed on the cylinder in a diagonal 
direction, in such a way that as the cylinder revolves each set 
of three teazles revolves upon its own axis. 
Part of the superiority of teazles over the wire brush for 
the purposes of cloth-dressing is due to the fact that on each 
side of the many separate hooks on the heads are placed many 
more hooks so fine as to be almost invisible to the naked eye. 
Hooks of such fineness could not possibly be manufactured, 
and therefore the teazle is still grown for commercial purposes 
in many agricultural countries. The bulk of the English 
grown supply is produced in Somersetshire, but the crop is 
also grown to a small extent in Essex, and when grown and 
harvested under favourable conditions the quality of the 
Somersetshire teazles is such that they have no superiors, 
although large supplies are imported for the English cloth- 
dressers from France and Austria, and small supplies from 
the United States of America. 
The soil and climatic conditions necessary for the cultivation 
of the plant, are a rich heavy clay soil, a copious rainfall at 
certain seasons of the year, and fine bright weather from July 
to the end of August. Should there be a continuous fall of 
light rain for a few days during this period a large part, or 
even the whole, of a valuable crop may be spoiled. On the 
other hand, sharp showers and bright sunshine are rather 
welcomed by the growers. The value of the teazle depends 
entirely upon the resisting power of the hooks. When the 
head is in a ripe condition the grasp of the hand is not sufficient 
to crush it, and if the base of a head on a standing plant is 
grasped in the hand with an upward movement the impression 
is generally nil. The hooks are rigid, the stems are tenacious, 
and as the plant sends its roots to a great depth the only effect 
is a test of the muscle of the arm of the person who attempts 
to remove the head of the plant. But if rain falls incessantly 
while the flowers are appearing in the heads, and water lodges 
in the interstices between the bracts, the head becomes partially 
or wholly rotten, and in either case it is useless. Such a 
summer as that of 1912 is disastrous to the teazle grower. On 
the contrary, in a fine season large numbers of heads are 
procured, and even if the supply should be excessive the heads 
can be stored for any length of time, provided they have been 
properly dried. But it is stated that the harvesting alone does 
not determine the rigidity and resisting power of the hooks, 
the nature of the soil also affects these qualities. The Somerset- 
shire growers say that the heavier the soil the better the quality 
of the teazle, and they have an idea that some of the mineral 
constituents of heavy clays enters in a special way into the 
composition of the heads of the teazle. 
