Abstract
WITH reference to the letter of Rosa M. Barrett, in NATURE of November 26, p. 79, I formerly lived for many years, and my father before me, in the part of Somerset to which your correspondent alludes, viz. the neighbourhood of Bath, and within a few miles of Mells, I never remember to have seen or heard of the cultivation of woad, Isatis tinctoria; but “woodwax” (? woad-wax), Genista tinctoria, which grows plentifully in that neighbourhood in pastures on marly soil, used to be collected by the peasant-women for dyeing purposes at the cloth factories in Trowbridge. The plant being very tough to pull up, “wood-waxing” was very laborious work. I am not aware whether it is still carried on there.
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PARSONS, H. The Cultivation of Woad. Nature 55, 198–199 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/055198f0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/055198f0
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