Dyeing. s. 136-139 (View of the Russian Empire. Agriculture. Productive industry.)

View of the Russian Empire, During the Reign of Catharine the Second, and to the Close of the Eighteenth Century.
By William Tooke, F. R. S.
Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the Free Economical Society at St. Petersburg. In three volumes. Vol. III.
The Third Edition.
Dublin: Printed by P. Wogan, No. 23, Old-Bridge.
1801

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Now that we are on the subject of the products from the vegetable kingdom that furnish materials for the loom, it will not be inexpedient to enumerate the plants employed in the mystery of DYEING. Russia,as well as some other european countries, neglects the fine dyeing materials, which are partly procured from remote parts of the world for the service of domestic industry; but she also begets a multitude of wild-growing herbs, flowers, roots, and mosses used in dyeing, the more sedulous collection or proper culture whereof might render unnecessary these foreign products. MADDER, or the red dye, grows WILD, but sparingly, on the banks of the Oka, near Riasan and Arsamas, on the borders of the Volga, in the confines of Sysran and Saratof Saratof, and in great quantities and of superior quality about the Samara, in Taurida, on the Terek, and in several districts of the caucasean government. This useful plant is nowhere properly cultivated; but in the regions of the Terek, along the Kura and Kuma, it is gathered in considerable abundance. As this however is not near sufficient for the demands of the inland manufactories, and Russia is obliged annually to make considerable purchase of red dyes, it would certainly be worth while to attend to the plantation of this vegetable, which in the foregoing districts would produce as good a commodity as that procured from Holland and Erfurt, if it were only gathered in autumn and not dried in the heat of a subterranean oven, but under sheds in the open air. The culture of madder is still in another respect of consequence to Russia, as in the collecting alone of the wild plants much time is lost that might be more beneficially employed. ¹ Cruciata palustris maxima.

² For example: galium boreale, mollugo, asperula tinctoria, &c. The origan, organy, wild, or bastard marjoram, or wild mint, in russ duschitza, a very common plant, yields also a fine crimson red, which might be successfully employed in dyeing. Guldenstædt, akad. rede, &c. sect. 51Two men who should cultivate madder in the above-mentioned districts, where the soil and the climate are so propitious to it, would easily gain as much by it, as ten do now, who perhaps will shortly have nothing more to get, as by their present manner of proceeding this useful plant will very soon be entirely eradicated. Likewise in the governments of Ufa, Kazan, Voronetch, Ekatarinoslaf, Kharkof, Braglaf, &c. as well as in Little-Russia, the red dyes would thrive in a moist and fruitful soil. In several of the provinces we have specified, there are other wild plants resembling madder; but, except the mariona¹, sufficiently known among the Kozaks of the Don, they are not entitled to any particular notice².

³Isatis tinctoria.

⁴Isatis lusitanica, Linn.After indigo the principal material for dyeing blue and green is WOAD; Russia buys of both every year to a considerable amount. The plant which produces indigo grows only in India, and therefore requires a much hotter climate than Russia anywhere possesses; consequently it is the more necessary to multiply the woad-plantations, as woad may not only supply in many cases the want of indigo, but as the blue of the former in fact deserves the preference. It is the more to be expected that the culture of this plant must be attended with good success, as both the real woad³, and a very similar variation of it⁴ are seen WILD in several of the Southern governments. The former grows spontaneously on the left shore of the Volga near Sysran, about Pensa, near Omsk in Siberia, but most plentifully in the Ukraine, and in the territory of Mosdok; the latter likewise abounds on the Oka, the Sura, and the Volga. In the governments of Pensa, Saratof, and Voronetch, considerable woad-plantations have already been made for some years past, which therefore probably may afford seeds sufficient for their farther propagation.

SAFFRON which is used both as a colour and as a drug, and is likewise an article of importation, grows WILD about the Terek, in the governments of Voronetch and Ekatarinoslaf, in Taurida, and especially in the caucasean mountains about Mosdok. The spring-saffron, growing in the first-mentioned district, is fit for little as a dye, and as a drug for nothing; but the autumnal saffron, gathered in Caucasus, is serviceable in both respects, and bulbs might therefore be obtained here as well as from Persia, which there is no doubt would succeed in the southern circles of Caucasus and Taurida.

⁵ Carthamus tinctorius.The consumption of SAFFLOWER⁵ is nearly as common, it being employed by the silk-dyers in preparing the flesh and rose-colours. Russia still continues to buy this commodity from the foreigner, the foreigner, notwithstanding that the plant thrives perfectly well in the gardens at Toropetz, Mosco, Tzaritzin, Poltava, and other places, so that, excepting the northern provinces, it might be raised almost everywhere.

⁶ Guldenstædt's, akademische rede, &c. § 51-54.Besides these four capital species, there is in Russia still a vast variety of more vulgar dyeing plants which might be employed to great advantage. Thus, for instance, a blue colour is got from the ash-bark, with which experiments ought to be to made, as that tree is in general very plenty, and in some districts there is even a great surplus of it. For red colours the Russian empire has already many materials, and might have many more; but in a far greater quantity still are the plants for yellow dyes, which moreover mostly grow wild. By these materials various shades, and by a mixture with the reds even an orange colour might be produced, which would render numbers of expensive foreign drugs for dyeing quite unnecessary.⁶