A BOOK ON
VEGETABLE
DYES

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BY
ETHEL M. MAIRET

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A.D.           1916

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PUBLISHED BY DOUGLAS PEPLER
AT THE HAMPSHIRE HOUSE
WORKSHOPS HAMMERSMITH W

Price 5s. net.

PRINTED by DOUGLAS PEPLER
at
DITCHLING in the COUNTY of SUSSEX
& PUBLISHED BY HIM AT
THE HAMPSHIRE HOUSE WORKSHOPS
HAMMERSMITH
ON S. JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DAY
A.D. MDCCCCXVI

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

IN PRINCIPIO ERAT VERBUM
ET VERBUM ERAT APUD DEUM
ET DEUS ERAT VERBUM.
Sc. Joannem 1.1.
VIDITQUE DEUS CUNCTA QUÆ
FECERAT: ET ERANT VALDE BONA.
Genesis. 1.31.

MAN uses these good things, and when MANfirst discovers how to make anything, that thingwhich he makes is good.

For example: this book is printed upon one ofthe first iron presses to be made in this country.The press is a good press; it would be difficult tomake a press which would enable the printer toprint more clearly. The wooden press was a goodpress & the printing from it has not been surpassed.

Further, this quality of goodness of a first discoverymay persist for many years.

But there is a tendency to avoid Quality Street.We are choosing rather Quantity Street & the Byepaths of Facility & Cleverness; we have become accustomedto the hum of the Time & Labour savingmachinery; and we are in danger of forgetting theuse of good things: indeed the tradition & practiceof goodness has been lost in a considerable numberof trades.

For instance: a carpenter has become so used tobuying his timber in planks from a yard that he hasnearly forgotten its relation to the tree. The manwho works to designs conceived by somebody elsewith wood sawn by another man's machine mustbe deprived of the natural strength of the tree.

And this is not an exception to, but an exampleof, the way we are choosing to do things.

It is impossible to buy linen as good as that normallyused by every tradesman in the XVIII century.It is nearly impossible to get cloth, paper,bread, beer, bacon and leather equal to that in commonuse 150 years ago.

IN VIEW OF THE BEGINNING it is desirableto record what still survives of the traditionsof making good things; and I shall endeavour topublish the instructions & advice of men & womenwho still follow these good traditions.

Douglas Pepler.

CONTENTS