, cochineal, and logwood dyed beautiful reds. The bark of red oak
or hickory made very pretty shades of brown and yellow. Various flowers
growing on the farm could be used for dyes. The flower of the goldenrod,
when pressed of its juice, mixed with indigo, and added to alum, made a
beautiful green. The juice of the pokeberry boiled with alum made
crimson dye, and a violet juice from the petals of the iris, or
"flower-de-luce," that blossomed in June meadows, gave a delicate light
purple tinge to white wool.

The bark of the sassafras was used for dyeing yellow or orange color,
and the flowers and leaves of the balsam also. Fustic and copperas gave
yellow dyes. A good black was obtained by boiling woollen cloth with a
quantity of the leaves of the common field-sorrel, then boiling again
with logwood and copperas.

In the South there were scores of flowers and leaves that could be used
for dyes. During the Revolutionary War one enterprising South Carolinian
got a guinea a pound for a yellow dye he made from the sweet-leaf or
horse-laurel. The leaves and berries of gall-berry bush made a good
black much used by hatters and weavers. The root of the barberry gave
wool a beautiful yellow, as did the leaves of the devil's-bit. The
petals of Jerusalem artichoke and St.-John's-wort dyed yellow. Yellow
root is a significant name and reveals its use: oak, walnut, or maple
bark dyed brown. Often the woven cloth was dyed, not the wool.

The next process was carding; the wool was first greased with rape oil
or "melted swine's grease," which had to be thoroughly worked in; about
three pounds of grease were put into ten pounds of wool. Wool-cards were
rectangular pieces of thin board, with a simple handle on the back or
at the side; to this board was fastened a smaller rectangle of strong
leather, set thick with slightly bent wire teeth, like a coarse brush.
The carder took one card with her left hand, and resting it on her knee,
drew a tuft of wool across it several times, until a sufficient quantity
of fibre had been caught upon the wire teeth. She then drew the second
wool-card, which had to be warmed, across the first several times, until
the fibres were brushed parallel by all these "tummings." Then by a
deft and catchy motion the wool was rolled or carded into small fleecy
rolls which were then ready for spinning.

Wool-combs were shaped like the letter T, with about thirty long steel
teeth from ten to eighteen inches long set