BOTTLE GREEN.
After washing and rinsing feathers thoroughly,—if dirty or greasy, extracting color if necessary,—prepare bath as follows: One ounce of turmeric diluted in one gallon of boiling water; enter your feathers and let remain in about one minute, after which take out and rinse thoroughly. Prepare a weak bath of logwood, about half a pound to the gallon of water, or about half the usual strength of an ordinary logwood bath for black; boil a few minutes, after which enter your feathers and let them remain in bath about one minute; then take out and rinse thoroughly in cold water; after which prepare a bath of half an ounce of bichromate of potash to one gallon of boiling water. Dissolve bichromate of potash, enter feathers and let them remain in about half a minute; a little longer if a very dark shade be required, and so much less time if a very light shade is required; after which take feathers out and rinse thoroughly in cold water. Dilute about one-half a teaspoonful of aniline green in a gallon of boiling water, and reduce temperature of bath a few degrees with cold water; then enter feathers and let them remain in bath about two or three minutes; remove feathers and cool off a small portion of the bath with cold water, and add to it a small handful of starch; pass your feathers through the bath, squeeze out and dry off in the usual way.
If found to be lighter than shade desired, rinse off starch thoroughly, and return for a few seconds to logwood bath without increasing temperature any; then rinse off in cold water, and pass through a weak solution of bichromate of potash, about one-quarter ounce to a gallon; after which rinse, starch and dry.
If found darker than shade desired, pass feathers through a solution of half a teaspoonful of oxalic acid in about one gallon of luke warm water for about thirty seconds; take them out of this and rinse twice through boiling water, and then give a weak bath of aniline green,—about half the strength of the first bath. If samples to be matched be more on the yellow or olive, use decidedly more turmeric in the first bath, and add a little, say about a teaspoonful, to the aniline green bath. If a green on the blue, it will be necessary to use only one-half the turmeric prescribed in the first bath.