On the culture and curing of madder: By Mr. Arbuthnot. Published by order of the Rt. Hon. the Dublin Society.

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ON THE CULTURE AND CURING OF MADDER.

BY MR. ARBUTHNOT.

IF it is required to establish a plantation of Madder, to which plants must be brought from a foreign country, they must be winter plants, which are pieces of the main root on which are many buds; these are to be had in the latter end of autumn or spring, when the crop is taken up. The best method is to pack them in sand, as the buds will shoot; the ground should be extremely rich, a sandy loom, and perfectly clean; furrows should be made about a foot asunder and about four inches deep; strew the pieces of root and any of the yellow shoots, that are broken off, just sufficiently to cover the bottom, and earth them. In the month of April there will appear numberless shoots, which should be kept very clean, and a little fine mould thrown over them to lengthen the stem, which are the spring plants; when the shoots are about six or eight inches above ground, they are fit to draw, but care must be taken to pull them up with as long a stem as possible, as that becomes the principal part of the crop; the earth must be loosened by an old trowel or any such like instrument to facilitate the drawing of the plants, but it must be done with care, as in a few days time there will be a fresh succession of plants like asparagus. The above are merely directions for the nursery, which may be dug up for crop when all the plants are obtained; for the repeated pulling will so weaken the roots, as to render them not worth standing for crop; for want of this precaution many people injure their crop by drawing plants from it, instead of planting a small patch as above described for a nursery. It must likewise be observed, that you will obtain the longest and best plants from the first year's growth, as the original plant or mother root is much deeper, than the crowns of the plants will be by earthing.

The land for the crop should be as for the nursery a rich mellow loam, either hazle, or black; it cannot be too rich, and must be perfectly clean; it must be ploughed as deep as the good soil will admit of the preceding year of planting. Soil, that will not admit of ploughing eighteen inches deep at least, is not fit for madder. It must be laid up in high four feet lands before winter, that it may be sufficiently dry for working in the spring; for unless the land is in exceeding good tilth when you plant, it is in vain to attempt it.

The land should therefore have one good ploughing in the spring, partly to destroy any weeds, which may have grown during the winter, as likewise to enliven the soil, but it must be when the land is perfectly dry; as soon as your plants are ready, which will be in April, slit down two furrows one foot asunder from the crown of the land as thus;

then lay the plants against the sides of the furrows about six inches asunder, with their heads leaning to each other; this operation may be performed by women and children, who are followed by men, who with hoes cover the plants with the mould, that was thrown out by the plough; when this is done, the lands will appear thus,

the plants lying as described. Unless it is rainy weather when your plants are drawn, they should be dipped in water the moment they are pulled, and kept quite wet till planted; and, if the land is dry, it will be requisite to give a good watering the evening of the planting; for, as the plants are extremely succulent, in that proportion they dry up the faster, and will shrink to the size of a straw. If the plants do not strike immediately, they are not worth standing; they are in the greatest perfection for pulling, when small fibres begin to push all around them. As soon as you perceive, that the plants have struck vigorously, hoe the ground well round and between them, so as to loosen the soil well, and make it perfectly pervious to the young fibres; as it is the vigour of the first year's growth, which is to secure you a plentiful crop. After this operation you are only to take care, that no weeds grow during the summer, which must be by hand weeding, and superficial hoeing; for the roots, which are the crop, must be carefully preserved from injury; therefore great care must be taken to watch and destroy moles, which always frequent rich land in search of worms, which they feed on. When weeding and hoeing the crop, draw a little light mould from the sides of the land to nourish the crowns as much as possible. In autumn, when the haulm dies, cover the whole over three inches deep, to preserve the crowns of the plants from frost, and the haulm rotting in the ground is beneficial, and keeps the ground loose; this earthing must be done from the intervals, which consequently should be occasionally worked with a light plough or horse hoe during the summer. Open the water furrows well against winter, that no water may lie. As early in the spring as the weather will permit, the whole plantation should be carefully weeded over, but great attention must be paid to the not destroying of the buds, which will be near the surface waiting for warm weather to push. Such land as I describe, being made rich, will be very subject to chickweed, and if it is not checked in time, it will greatly smother the crop and exhaust the moisture from the surface of the soil. The remainder of the second year's practice should be as the first, respecting hand weeding and slight superficial hoeing, and earthing on the haulm in autumn; indeed the more you can earth the plants in the time of growing the better, as it will produce a greater quantity of roots; but each year, you must be more careful in not disturbing the sides of the lands, as the shoots will run like asparagus; thus at last you have only a deep furrow between the lands. Some people take up the crop the second year, but I prefer three years growth: the great expence being the preparing the land, planting, and taking up the crop, I have ever found the third year pay largely for the rent and tithes; the labour of hoeing is the least, and not necessary to be so very minutely attended to, though large weeds must not be suffered to grow. The Dutch take it up at two years old, which from their mode of planting is right; they plant very thick on beds, from which circumstance their plants cannot come to any size. But I disapprove of that method, as it is the interior part of the roots, which produces the valuable madder, consequently the larger the root, the greater is the proportion of the best quality. I have traced the age of some Turkey roots to fifteen years old; they were become a solid wood all of the best quality, these must have grown wild.

The general practice of taking up the crop is by the spade. I did it with a large plough, which struck a clean furrow of above twenty inches deep; men, women, and boys followed the plough, and threw out the roots. The dirt should be shook out of them as much as possible, then carry them every day out of the field to be dried in the shade; when perfectly dry, most of the remainder of the dirt will shake out, first beating the roots to pieces with poles or flails. They must then be dried on a kiln: the one I built was of the annexed form,
A, Fire place. B, Flue, full of holes to let out the heat. C, Hair cloth on laths, to hold the madder roots. D, The stove arched over, in which is the kiln 30 feet long.

The madder must be frequently turned, and will be dry enough for grinding in twenty four hours. The first time, that it goes under the stones, requires but a few minutes; it must be sifted and produces a very inferior species, which is the outward coat or rind. The remainder is returned to the stones, and is kept there till the eye tells you that the interior part begins to grind, which discovers itself by the paleness of the colour. If you require the best sort to be very fine, you continue this second grinding a little longer, in short till all the rind is pulled off; it must be then sifted, and the remainder put again under the stones and ground till fine enough for use. Each sort should be casked up separately, and kept in a dry place where no moisture can affect it; care should likewise be taken to press the madder well down in the casks.

There are various sorts of madder differing greatly from each other both in appearance, and value. The sort I prefer is the Turkey, being more vigorous, and of a darker green. It likewise produces abundance of seed, which the common sort does not; it puts out many vigorous and solid runners, whereas the runners of the common species are hollow, and produce none of the best part of the madder, which is contained in the woody part of the root.

My mills consisted of two vertical stones, that run on a bed stone, such as they use for grinding gunpowder, dye woods &c.

FINIS.

ON THE CULTURE AND CURING OF MADDER.

BY MR. ARBUTHNOT.

Published by Order of the Rt. Hon. the Dublin Society.

Dublin. PRINTED BY GRAISBERRY & CAMPBELL, 10, BACK-LANE. 1800.

THE Society desires it to be understood, that as a body, they are not responsible for any opinion or representation of facts contained in the following paper, and will be much obliged to any gentleman, farmer, or other person, that will be pleased to point out any error, or improvement in the several matters treated of, by letters addressed to their Acting Secretary, the Rev. Dr. LYSTER, Hawkins-street, Dublin.

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On the culture and curing of madder: By Mr. Arbuthnot. Published by order of the Rt. Hon. the Dublin Society.

Arbuthnot, John, of Mitcham.

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http://ota.ox.ac.uk/id/5395

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1106023943

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9781106023940

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K115236.000

ID [BIBNO]

CW3309345539

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0990400400

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— On the culture and curing of madder: By Mr. Arbuthnot. Published by order of the Rt. Hon. the Dublin Society., Arbuthnot, John, of Mitcham.. [2],9,[1]p. : ill. ; 8⁰. Dublin :: printed by Graisberry & Campbell,. 1800.. [In: Transactions of the Dublin Society. Vol.I', Dublin, 1800.] ["For the convenience of the public, the essays in these Transactions may be had separate, at the publisher's".] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT149808.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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