archy, and the rival jealousies of foreign nations, would have impeded, or prohibited, the necessary supply of teasels, and thus rendered the domestic cultivation of this indispensable plant a primary object. The manufactory of cloth was certainly carried on in England during the reign of Richard I., perhaps in his father's reign; but it was probably not until after the tenth of Edward III., that the teasel was cultivated to any extent with us; for about that time the exportation of English wool was prohibited, and the wearing of foreign cloth opposed by government. Flemish artisans were encouraged to settle in this country, and carry on their trade, with every liberty and protection; a regular mart was established; and the tuckers, or woollen weavers, became an incorporated body; particular towns began to furnish peculiar colors-Kendal, its green, Coventry, its blue, Bristol, its red, &c.; and from this period, I think, we may date the cultivation of the teasel in England. Hudson, in considering this species as indigenous, directs us to hedges for our specimens; but, though the teasel is certainly found a wilding in some places astray from cultivation, yet it is singular that with us it does not wander from culture: though the seeds are scattered about and swept from the barns where the heads are dried into the yard, and vegetate in profusion on the dung-heaps and the by-ways where dropped, yet I have never observed it growing in the surrounding hedges. Teasels are cultivated in some of the strong claylands of Wilts, Essex, Gloucester, and Somerset. The latter county is supposed to have grown them earliest. The manufacturers rather give the preference to those of Gloucester, as lands repeatedly cropped are thought not to produce them so good in some respects. Strong land, thrown up as for wheat, and kept dry, affords the best teasels. Weeding, draining, and other requisites, demand a constant labor through great part of the year; and hence a certain expense is incurred: but remune. ration, loss, or great profit, circumstances must determine; nor, perhaps, is there any article grown more precarious or mutable in its returns. 66 The teasel throws up its heads in July and August; and these are cut from the plant by hand, with a knife particularly formed, and then fastened to poles for drying the terminating heads are ready first, and called kings" they are larger and coarser than the others, and fitted only for the strongest kinds of cloth, and are about half the value of the best. The collateral heads then succeed, and receive the name of "middlings,' and are the prime teasels. Should the season prove moist, great injury ensues; but exposure to wet for any length of time ruins the head, which, by its peculiar construction, retains the moisture, and it decays. We cannot stack them like corn, as pressure destroys the spines, and a free circulation of air is required to dry them thoroughly; and we seek for barns, sheds, and shelter of any kind, crowd the very bed-rooms of our cottages with them in dripping seasons, and bask them in every sunny gleam that breaks out: this is attended with infinite trouble; and as few farmers, who have so many other concerns on their hands, like to encounter it, they become the speculation of the most opulent class of cottagers. When dry, they are picked and sorted into bundles for sale, ten thousand best and small middlings making a pack; nine thousand constitute the pack of kings. If there be a stock on hand, and the season favorable, there is à sufficiency for the demand, and the price low: if adverse weather ensue, the price becomes greatly advanced, and we have known them in the course of a few months vary from 41. to 221. the pack! but from 51. to 77. is perhaps the average price of this article. This variation in value affords the growers a subject for constant speculation-a source of rapid wealth to some, and injury to others—and we most emphatically call teasels a "casualty crop." Our manufacturers occasionally import teasels from Holland and France, when the price is high in England: this they can do when the home price exceeds 81. In letting teasel land, various agreements are made, not necessary to mention in a note like this; but it is usually taken for two years, it requiring much of this D time from sowing the seed to cutting the heads for sale In rating the expenses, we will say— One acre. at 21. per ann. (for two years) Tithe . Cutting the heads, per acre. Sorting and packing at 6s. for seven packs, average Average crop brought to market, seven packs, at 67. 42 0 0 Leaving a profit for the 2 years, upon an acre, of £28 4 3 As the teasel man seldom rents less than four or six acres, which he can very well attend to, it may produce at the two years' end a return upon the six acres of 1697., if all circumstances should be favorable—a tempting inducement to speculation, when a laborer, by regular daily pay, cannot earn above 321. per annum. But it requires some ready money to support the family during this period of expectation-and if a bad season occur, all the labor is lost, the profit destroyed, the anxiety of months ends in disappointment, and debt only remains. This is most truly a casualty crop; and the manufacturers are so sensible of the risk and trouble attending the cultivation of this plant, that they prefer purchasing to growing it for their own use; and I know one who has declared his loss in the attempt to exceed 500Z. It has been thought that the cultivation of teasels exhausted the land, and some landlords in consequence have forbidden the growth of them in their agreements; perhaps I can be no sufficient judge of the accuracy of this idea, from our limited growth, but speaking locally, such land as we make use of for their culture is of so inferior a nature, that little deterioration can ensue from any crop. The teasel, having a tap root, does not exhaust the superficial soil as a fibrous-rooted plant would do; the ground on which they grow is hoed, and turned by the spade repeatedly, and up to a certain period kept free from weeds; but as the plant is forming heads, 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 purposes 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 contrivance 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 surface, 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. 40 BAD CUSTOM IN FARMING. passage of the wheel, or frame, of teasels. Should the hook of the chaff, when in use, become fixed in a knot, or find sufficient resistance, it breaks without injuring or contending with the cloth, and care is taken by successive applications to draw the impediment out: but all mechanical inventions hitherto made use of offer resistance to the knot; and, instead of yielding and breaking as the teasel does, resist and tear it out, making a hole, or injuring the surface. The dressing of a piece of cloth consumes a great multitude of teasels-it requiring from 1500 to 2000 heads to accomplish the work properly. They are used repeatedly in the different stages of the process; but a piece of fine cloth generally breaks this number before it is finished, or we may say that there is a consumption answering to the proposed fineness-pieces of the best kinds requiring one hundred and fifty or two hundred runnings up, according to circumstances. Our small farmers here have a vile practice of picking from their turf, in the spring of the year, all the droppings of their autumn and winter fed cattle to carry on their arable land for the potato, or some grain crop: this affords no great supply to plowed land, and is very injurious to their grazing grounds; but the answer generally is, "that the corn must have manure, and the beast can take care of itself;" and in many cases, I fear, from the starved appearance of the young cattle, that their best endeavors have afforded a very inadequate supply. This picking of the field was formerly very generally resorted to in the midland counties; but the farmers at that time had a sufficient excuse in the scarcity of common fuel. The droppings of the cows were collected in heaps, and beaten into a mass with water; then pressed by the feet into moulds like bricks, by regular professional persons, called clatters (clodders); then dried in the sun, and stacked like peat, and a dry March for the clat-harvest was considered as very desirable. These answered very well for heating water for the dairy and uses of the farm back-kitchen, giving a steady, dull heat, without flame; but navigable canals, and other |