(P. 3) DIRECTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF FLAX AND FLAX-SEED
It is found by experience, that when flax-seed is sown on a thin and poor soil (which is frequently done) the roots meeting with a gravel or cold clay, the growth of the flax is starved, it grows short and weak, and the seed degenerates.
We may also frequently observe yellow, red and brown rows, and much sprit in cloth, all which faults arise from the poorness and thinness of the soil in which the seed was sewn, that is not able to nourish the root, so that the flax has generally but a weak stem; which by the heat of the sun and weather (p. 4) turns of a brownish or reddish colour long before it be ripe.
For remedy whereof, make choice of fresh land and good soil, which for some years past has been grazed upon. In the months of September or October, lay it over with dung, digging or ploughing it down soon after. In December following or thereabouts, as the weather proves open and fair, harrow it well and cross plough it after. If the land be of a clayey substance it will require four ploughings; but if otherwise, three will serve. After the last ploughing and harrowing, lest the land should want depth to give the seed its full growth, divide the land into ridges of fifteen or sixteen feet broad or less, but that according to the wetness or dryness of the land, marking it out as is most convenient for carrying off the water. Between each ridge mark out eight foot, the mould of which is to be thrown on the ridges on each side, so as to make the (p. 5) mould on the ridges one third thicker, which will cause a furrow between each ridge, resembling a potato-garden. To prepare the flax-seed for sowing, you must steep it in new milk about two days, which will nourish and swell it, then sow it, taking one fourth less than is commonly used in this kingdom, viz. instead of four bushels to an acre take but three, and so in proportion to the quantity of ground to be sowed. By this method the flax will be long and strong, the seed good, and yield a good increase. This kind of flax will make the best sort of cloth, and take a better colour, and sooner than that which is produced by a thin soil, and the charges sufficiently recompensed.
SOME CAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN WATERING FLAX
The blackish and bluish rows in cloth always arise from watering the flax in black turf-bogs that yield red ashes. These bogs contract a black (p. 6) slimy dirt at the bottom of the water which dyes or stains the flax, so that it will never bleach to a true white, which is only to be prevented by making choice of good water. The best in my opinion, is in your turf-bogs, commonly called flow-bogs, that produce great quantities of white fog growing in the water: flax watered in this comes soon to a good colour. Loughs are very proper, or ponds drawn from rivers so contrived, that they may easily be drained to bring fresh water to your flax. Rather under water than over water your flax, and when you spread it on the grass do it very thin, and turn it according to your discretion to prevent its mildewing, which is another very frequent cause of rows in cloth.
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR THE BETTER BLEACHING LINEN-CLOTH AND YARN
Buck [wash] your hollands or other linen-cloth either with green buck, or with leys [lye or detergent] made of fern-ashes, kelp or (p. 7) pot-ashes, or both fern-ashes and kelp mist [mixed?], or pot-ashes alone, according to the common methods; but be sure at the end of every bucking before you lay them on the bleach-yard to bat and rench [English dialect for rinse] the leys very clear out of the cloth, which must be done on the batting-plank and planking-floor hereafter both described. For the common practise of spreading it with leys in it, is no manner of benefit to it; but on the contrary the leys drying in the cloth, stain it and give it a yellowness, the taking out of which will oblige you to let it lie longer in the sower [sour from buttermilk], than otherwise would be necessary, and consequently weakens it.
When you have given your cloth the first buck, carry it to the batting-plank, which must be thus prepared. Take a plank of oak, ash, or fir, if the other two cannot easily be had, they being most proper and lasting; let it be ten or twelve inches broad and five feet long, rather longer than shorter, which plank may be called a cleansing or batting-(p. 8) plank. Cut in it a round or square hole of three inches diameter within a foot of the end, and equidistant from the two sides. Prepare also a kieve or vessel near three foot high and about as much diameter. Prepare also a small hand batt, being a flat piece of wood about twenty inches long, four broad, and one and a half-thick, part of it being cut into a handle. Place the plank cross the top of the kieve or vessel to be ready for the work, first putting cold water into it. The cloth being bucked the first time ready to be taken out of the bucking-kieve, take one or more pieces and put them into the vessel that is under the plank, soaking them in the cold water; then take one piece and put the two ends of it up the hole laying it on the plank, holding it with one hand, and turning it as it is gently beaten with the bat. This loosens the ley bucking, and cleanses the cloth from it. Continue drawing it through the plank and batting it in this manner until the whole piece be cleansed, (p. 9) letting the cloth as it is batted pass down into the vessel out of which it was drawn.
Having thus far cleansed one or more pieces on the plank, they must be carried to the planking-floor, which must be thus prepared. Take ten or twelve deal boards, plane and nail them upon a frame of several strong joists, as is done in flooring. Place this frame on the brink of a good watering place, bring your cloths to this floor, lash fair water on all parts of it, beating it with your planking-poles, such as are used by dyers, till it appear well renched from the ley-buck. Then lay it on the bleach-yard, water and expose it there in the usual manner four days or a week. Take it up when near dry, and let it undergo a second course of bucking as before, repeating it to four or five times for fine and thin cloths. Others will require six or seven of those ley-bucks, all which must be governed by observation.
NEXT FOLLOWS SOAP-BUCKING
(p. 10) Take the cloth to the kieve that lies under your batting-plank, and being wet with fair water, draw it by the two ends up the hole over the plank, that you may rub soap on it all over, letting it fall into the same kieve of water. Then draw it by the two ends up the hole in the plank, beating it gently with the batt as it is turned with the other hand, letting it fall into the vessel again; by which means the soap will pierce through all parts of the cloth. Four pounds of soap will serve for twenty pieces of holland, of twenty three yards each. When this is done, lay it in the bucking kieve, bucking it with warm water, in the same manner as the ley-bucking. Continue this soap bucking but five hours, then batt it on the plank, rench it on the floor, and lay it on the green, watering and letting it lie four days. When it is dry, it is ready for sour liquor, which is thus prepared.
TO MAKE A GOOD SOUR
(p. 11) Put fair [clean] warm water into a kieve or vessel of size sufficient to contain the pieces of cloth in hand. To the quantity of each half barrel of water, put eight quarts of wheat or oat-meal, or of both mixed, or of any other grain if you have not of the former, mixing the meal or warm water well. Cover up the vessel very close for twenty-four hours, or thereabouts, till the liquor becomes sour, adding four quarts of buttermilk to each half barrel of water, or more if to be had. And to increase the sharpness, add the juice of three or four handfuls of sorrel: when that is not to be had, you may instead put three ounces of burnt alum, or any other innocent [innocuous or harmless] sharps. The sour being thus prepared, well stirred up, and mixed with the meal which lay at the bottom, put the cloth therein, and in an open manner the better to receive the liquor, and either with staves or men’s feet, it may be so worked as to (p. 12) become full of the liquor. Let it remain thus forty-eight hours. Place your plank over this kieve if not too large, else over its usual vessel or kieve. Then bring a piece of the cloth out of the sour, drawing it double up the hole in the plank, and batting it as before. Then put it into the same sour, let it lie forty-eight hours more; take it thence and batt it a second time. Then take it to the planking-floor to water out all the sour liquor. This course must be repeated a second, third or fourth time according as the cloth requires. Between the souring and soaping, you may give hollands a bucking of leys made of pot-ashes, always taking care to batt and rench the leys well out before you spread them on the bleachyard. When your cloth is come to a perfect good colour, take some buttermilk, and three times as much water, handle your cloth well in it, then rench it clear in water only, and so take it up. The use of this buttermilk is not only for the (p. 13) colour, but to make it handle well and like Dutch hollands. Make use of stone and powder-blue mixed, and the finest starch you can get, and observe, that light blueing is best for very white cloth.
DIRECTIONS FOR HIGH WHITENING YARN IN A SHORTER TIME THAN HAS YET BEEN PRACTISED, FIT FOR DOWLASS, TAPES, TICKS, ETC.
After yarn is soaked in cold water, batt, rench and wring it according to the usual method, then lay it in the bucking-kieve. Spread several courses one above another to the thickness of eight or nine inches. Spread thereon ashes of the country make, the quantity of a bushel to one layer, if the kieve be five foot broad and so in proportion. Then lay a like course of yarn and a like course of ashes, till the kieve be full. A strong ley of ashes being prepared, the kieve of yarn must be bucked therewith. (p. 14) Following the buck [leave it] twenty-four [hour]s day and night. Take it thence and lay it in cold water to soak a while, then batt it gently turning it on the plank, thence to the planking-floor, which will cleanse it from all the first bucking, then wring it and spread it thin on the bleaching green, letting it lie there two weeks, turning it each week. Then proceed to a second bucking, putting no ashes between the courses of yarn in the kieve; but instead place a sheet over the head of the kieve, and therein put about a bushel of fern-ashes only, the quantity more or less according to the size of the kieve. Follow this second bucking (but with a weaker ley than the first) for one day, then gently batt and rench out the ley, spread it on the grass, and let it lie as before. Repeat this course a third time. When that is finished, prepare a good suds of soap, dissolved and beat up in warm water, in which lay your yarn, then batt it gently on the plank, turning it as before. Then give it a bucking with water and soap without any ley, then rench the soap, buck out in fair water and lay it on the green. If this do not make it white enough, you must repeat another soap buck, renching it and laying it on the green as before. When you take it up you must rench it in fair water, wring it and hang it up to dry.
1 Printed by Andrew Crooke, Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, in Copper Alley, Dublin, 1715 [Hanson 2116]. Punctuation and spelling modernised.