The English Woad Harvest

Hokitika Guardian, 29 October 1921, Page 4

The English Woad Harvest

a cknturiks rn.i) industry

(■•'rani n Special Correspondent)

August is tin* month when the oldest, known harvest in England is gatin’red, harvest whic h the early Hritons knew when they went out to fight, clad not in armour, hut in a stain of blue. ]>y the end of August the first of this harvest has hoen gathered, then lolhnvs the main crop. The product of it is always before our eyes, as from "it is obtained the fine, enduring blue of the policeman’s and other uniforms ■ \\ended by the express directions of the authorities concerned.

It is the pulp of the woad or dyer’s weed that is made use of to give a brilliant finish to cloth, and to act as a mordant in fixing the colour. Chemists at home and abroad have tried i» vain to find out this secret of Nature’s and it is as well that they fail, for it cannot he doubted that this industry would not exist now hut for the official desire to get the best and most lasting of uniforms. Not many of the public insist on having a wooded cloth. That is their ignorance. It certainly costs more, hut it is cheaper in the end.

Woad was for centuries invaluable as a (lye. hut in time it had to give place to indigo, which again was ousted b\ the the German’s coal-tar dyes. During the war both woad and indigo recovered. and neither has as yet quite given way to he re-introduction of aniline bine.

The woad harvest is one which modern science and industry has not alteied. Tn that part of Lincolnshire known as Holland, because of its dyes and windmills, and along the border of Cambridgeshire nearby, the dyer’s wood is gathered in just the same way as generations ago. long before India or anv other country exported indigo, or the Germans picked British chemists’ brains and exploited coal-tar dyes. HOW WOAD IS OAT UK HKD AND

MANUKACTFBKD

The woad, or Isntis Tinetoria, if allowed to seed, grows- as high as three or four feet, with a pretty yellow bower. At. the first, harvest, now starting, the crop of tender green shoots is picked by hand, the men and women creeping across the fields on hands and knees. The shoots are thrown into deep wicker baskets, and taken to He factory, of which there are now only three or four not far front Boston, I.in eolnshire. At th ( , factory the shoots are crushed into a pn.li), and fermented in troughs, then are made up into halls and laid out on drying racks. After several weeks the halls are broken into hits, and stirred for fifty days, and the woad that results is a dirty, coarse, powder-like substance. The last stage of the process is the damping of this powder, when it is stored in vats, and is ready for sale to dry-salters and woollen manufacturers and dyers. All throughout the season men arid women crawl among t.ho beds, pulling and clearing away the weeds. There is no need for a ‘‘Union Ticket” or button us they curry on their bunds the sign manual of llieir occupation- the stain of woad blue.