--The young shoots of these
are eaten as asparagus.
* * * * *
SECTION XI.--PLANTS USEFUL IN DYEING.
There is no department of the oeconomy of vegetables in which we are more
at a loss than in the knowledge of their colouring principles; and as
this subject presents to the student an opportunity of making many
interesting and useful experiments, I trust I shall stand excused, if I
enter more fully into the nature of it than I have found it necessary to
do in some of the former sections.
The following list of plants, which is given as containing colours of
different kinds, are the same as have been so considered for many years
past: for, latterly, little has been added to our stock of knowledge on
this head. It may however be proper to observe, that a great number of
vegetables still contain this principle in a superior degree, and only
want the proper attention paid to the abstracting it.
Most of our dyeing drugs are from abroad; and even the culture of
madder, which was once so much grown by our farmers, is now lost to us,
to the great advantage of the Dutch, who supply our markets. But there
is no reason why the agriculturist, or the artisan, should be so much
beholden to a neighbouring nation, as to pay them enormous prices for
articles which can be so readily raised at home; and, according to the
general report of the consumers, managed in a way far superior to what
it generally is when imported.
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