171 
rience will waste his labor and attention on such lands Upon 
so uncertain a produce. Warm and moist seasons increase 
the quantity every where, but they can never give the prin¬ 
ciple which only good land affords. In very wet seasons, 
Woad from poor land is of little value. I once had occasion 
to purchase at such a time, and found that there was no pos¬ 
sibility of regulating my vats in their fermentation, and was 
under the necessity of making every possible effort to ob¬ 
tain some that was the produce of a more genial season. I 
succeeded at last: but I kept the other three and four years 
when I found it more steady in its fermentation; but still it 
required a double quantity, and even then its effect was not 
like that from good Woad. 
At this time several dyers experienced much difficulty, 
and one of eminence in the blue trade suffered so much by 
Woad of his own growth that he declared his resolution to 
decline the trade altogether. When I pointed out to him 
that it was the Woad that occasioned his bad blues, and 
that I had from the same defect purchased such other Woad 
as would do, and informed him where he could get it, he 
succeeded as usual; his own he disposed of to a dry sailer, 
■who sold it again somewhere in the country ; and it occa¬ 
sioned such a cause of complaint as I believe rendered the 
claim of payment to be given up or partly so: of this I am 
not certain, having it only from report. I mention this in 
order to give those who wi$i to become growers of Woad 
such information as may properly direct them. 
The leaves of Woad, on good land, in a good season, 
grow very large and long, and when they are ripe shew near 
their end a brownish spot inclining to a purple towards its 
centre, while other parts of the leaves appear green but just 
beginning to turn of a more yellowish shade ; and then they 
must be gathered or they will be injured. Woad is to be 
gathered from two to four and even five times in the sea¬ 
son, as I once experienced (it was an early and a late sea¬ 
son) and for the next spring I saved an acre for seed of 
