FULLER'S TEASEL.
In this day, machinery takes the raw wool and cards, spins, weaves, and dyes it, with scarcely a hand touching the warp or woof until the finished cloth is rolled onto a bolt for the merchant to unroll on his counter. One process in the making of cloth depends upon the seed heads of a weedy plant. No inventor has been able to imitate in steel the fuller's teasel. It comes down into the modern woolen mills from the days when it helped the hand worker co bring up the "nap" on cloth. All the primitive machinery has passed into mus eums — all but the hooks on the teasels. They were as flexible, as strong, as efficient in the begin ning of cloth manufacture as now. The only improvement they have seen is in the device that holds them in position as they do their inimitable work in finishing fine cloth.
For blankets and other woolens with the longest nap, the "king" teasel heads are required. Shorter nap, such as English cloths have, is made by the "queens." Broadcloth has a fine, short nap that is produced by the smallest teasel heads, called "buttons." The common teasel of waysides and neglected fields is not the same as the cultivated "fuller's teasel." But it is so close to it that few people would distinguish the commercial from the worth less species, unless they had experience in teasel buying. Look at a full-grown teasel, and the "king" is easily seen standing at the top of the straight, main stem. The "queens" are on the ends of the main branches. The "buttons" tip the secondary branches. One king, several queens, and a multitude of buttons — that is the way they run in size and numbers.
Teasel plants have some very interesting pecul iarities. The paired leaves that clasp the stem form a deep cup at each joint where branches start, and this cup catches and holds a pint or so of water. If this water is lost, the heads above will not be perfectly formed. At least, this is what growers of fuller's teasels declare. They say, too, that the flowers of all other heads depend on the king for pollen, and if the king is dethroned at blooming time the other heads will fail to mature seeds, though they come to larger size.
If the teasel is grown in your neighborhood, find out if these things are true. The cultivated species is raised on a commercial scale in Onondaga County, New York, where is it a great success. Small plantations in Oregon do well, but buyers prefer the New York teasels.
European countries buy buttons from America for broadcloths, and we import kings for the making of our blankets. So there is exchange between teasel-growing countries.
Teasel seed is planted in drills, the plants thinned to ten inches apart in the rows and culti vated like corn. Each forms a large rosette of leaves the first year, and throws up the blossom stalk the second spring. The blossoms, crowded on the oval head, begin to bloom in a purple belt around the middle. As these flowers fade, the bloom proceeds toward the top and bottom. Two bands of purple are moving in opposite di rections, until the base and tip have shed their withered petals. This curious habit may be seen in any roadside teasel. The wiry, backward turning bracts under the individual blossoms are the hooks that "full" the cloth by picking up the ends of fibres, and thus forming the desired "nap." The teasel buyer pays about a dollar a thousand (ten pounds) for dry heads. The grower cuts the heads with a few inches of stem, and spreads them in lofts of barns or sheds to dry. A fair yield in New York is ioo,000 heads per acre. In Europe intensive farming on land much higher in value produces a crop three or four times as large. Considering that the field is in use two years, and must be very carefully tilled, the grower's income is not large, though it is good. His job is to sort the heads, shorten the stems, and pack his stock for shipment to the manufacturer. The heads are surprisingly long-lived in use, the hooks having to be cleaned of fuzz often before they become worn out.