152 
a darker colour. The same method will apply to siik, but 
not at all to linen and cotton. 
BLACK. 
To make a handsome black, the wool must first be dyed 
blue and afterwards blackened with the usual ingredients. 
The pericarpium or husk which covers the hazel nut when 
green, is used in France in preference to any other sub¬ 
stance to procure a handsome black. The husks of our 
nuts and the witch hazel (hamamelis virginica) might 
equally be used to advantage; but the hazel nut husk, if 
they could be collected in sufficient quantity, would be far 
preferable. 
[No. 2.] 
On the economical utility of the Apocinum 
Cannahinum , or Indian Hemp , and the As- 
clepias , or Milkwee.d ) natives of the State 
of Mew-York. 
TPhESE plants belong to the second section of the 5th 
class of Linnseus, and they have been divided by that father 
of the sexual system in two separate genders. The first 
(apocinum) deriving its name from the Greek (uTroxwos) 
or kill dog, on account of its being considered as a poison for 
those animals ; and the other from Esculapius on account of 
the medical virtues of its roots, used by the ancients as the 
best antidote or contra-poison ; but our American farmers, 
inattentive to the botanical characters of the plants, compre¬ 
hend indiscriminately the different species and varieties of 
apocinum and asclepias under the common denomination of 
