TO DYE BLACK.
Boil two good handfuls of log-wood with a little sumach and elder bark for an hour, put in the stuff or hackles (boil very gently), bruise a piece of copperas about the size of two Spanish nuts, put it in with a little argil and soda; take out the hackles and hold them in the open air a little, then put them in again and leave them all night gently heated, wash the dye well out of them and your black will be fine. The argil and soda soften the dye stuff of the copperas, but a small quantity must be put in.
TO DYE GREENS OF VARIOUS
SHADES.
The greatest nicety of all is in finding the exact quantity of ingredients to put in, so as to prevent the dye stuff from injuring the fibres of the hackles, &c.; for the light shades add the smallest quantity, and augment it by degrees. Dye the hackles a very light shade of blue first, in prepared indigo,[J] as I said before, take a spoonful and put it into the dye pot and boil it softly for half an hour. Add a very small quantity of alum and tartar to the dye, put in your hackles, and boil for a short time; add to the dye a table-spoonful of the best turmeric, savoy, or green wood, a little of each would do best, boil slowly for an hour, take out the hackles, rinse them, and you will have a green: you may have any shade of green by dyeing the blues darker or lighter, and putting in more yellowing stuff and less blue when light yellow greens are required, boil gently, and look at the hackles often to see that they have taken the shade you want.
TO DYE LAVENDER OR SLATE DUN,
&c. &c.
Boil ground logwood with bruised nut galls and a small quantity of copperas, according to judgment: you may have a pigeon dun, lead colour, light, or dark dun. The ingredients must be used in small quantities, according to taste. You may have raven grey, or duns of various shades, by boiling with the logwood a small quantity of alum and copperas.