A BOOK ON
VEGETABLE
DYES

---

BY
ETHEL M. MAIRET

---

A.D.           1916

---

PUBLISHED BY DOUGLAS PEPLER
AT THE HAMPSHIRE HOUSE
WORKSHOPS HAMMERSMITH W

Price 5s. net.

PRINTED by DOUGLAS PEPLER
at
DITCHLING in the COUNTY of SUSSEX
& PUBLISHED BY HIM AT
THE HAMPSHIRE HOUSE WORKSHOPS
HAMMERSMITH
ON S. JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DAY
A.D. MDCCCCXVI

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

IN PRINCIPIO ERAT VERBUM
ET VERBUM ERAT APUD DEUM
ET DEUS ERAT VERBUM.
Sc. Joannem 1.1.
VIDITQUE DEUS CUNCTA QUÆ
FECERAT: ET ERANT VALDE BONA.
Genesis. 1.31.

MAN uses these good things, and when MAN first discovers how to make anything, that thing which he makes is good.

For example: this book is printed upon one of the first iron presses to be made in this country. The press is a good press; it would be difficult to make a press which would enable the printer to print more clearly. The wooden press was a good press & the printing from it has not been surpassed.

Further, this quality of goodness of a first discovery may persist for many years.

But there is a tendency to avoid Quality Street. We are choosing rather Quantity Street & the Bye paths of Facility & Cleverness; we have become accustomed to the hum of the Time & Labour saving machinery; and we are in danger of forgetting the use of good things: indeed the tradition & practice of goodness has been lost in a considerable number of trades.

For instance: a carpenter has become so used to buying his timber in planks from a yard that he has nearly forgotten its relation to the tree. The man who works to designs conceived by somebody else with wood sawn by another man's machine must be deprived of the natural strength of the tree.

And this is not an exception to, but an example of, the way we are choosing to do things.

It is impossible to buy linen as good as that normally used by every tradesman in the XVIII century. It is nearly impossible to get cloth, paper, bread, beer, bacon and leather equal to that in common use 150 years ago.

IN VIEW OF THE BEGINNING it is desirable to record what still survives of the traditions of making good things; and I shall endeavour to publish the instructions & advice of men & women who still follow these good traditions.

Douglas Pepler.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

DYEING has almost ceased to exist as a traditional art. In this 20th century the importance of colour in our lives seems to be realized less and less. It has been forgotten that strong and beautiful colour, such as used to abound in all every day things, is an essential to the full joy of life. A sort of fear or nervousness of bright colour is one of the features of our age, it is especially evident in the things we wear.

There is unfortunately good reason for it. We fear bright colour because our modern colours are bad, and they are bad because the tradition of dyeing has been broken. The chemist has invaded the domain of the dyer, driven him out and taken over his business, with the result that ugly colour has become the rule for the first time in the history of mankind. It is not that chemists never produce beautiful colour. Dyeing as a chemical science has not been studied for the last 50 years without producing good results. But there is this great difference between the chemical commercial dyes and the traditional dyes—that with the commercial dyes it is very easy to produce ugly colours, the beautiful colour is rare; but with traditional dyes it is difficult to make an ugly colour, and good colour is the rule.

It was in 1856 that mauve was produced from coal tar by an English chemist, and this began a new era in dyeing. The discovery was developed in Germany, and the result was the creation of a science of chemical colouring.

The advantages of the new colours were ease and simplicity of use, general reliability with regard to strength and composition, and certainty in reproducing the same colour again without trouble. With regard to fastness, to light and to washing there is practically little difference between the two. It is more the method by which they are dyed and not the dye itself (although of course in some cases this is not so) that determines their fastness. The natural dyes are more trouble and take longer time to prepare. Chemical colours can be dyed now as fast as the natural colours, although at first this could not be done. Some of the chemical colours as well as the natural, are not fast to light and washing, and ought never to be used; but there are natural colours, such as madder, some of the lichens, catechu etc., which are as fast as any chemical dye, if not more so. BUT there is this general difference between the results of the two methods,—that when a